William Evans-Smith v. John B. Taylor

OPINION

MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge:

Appellant, William Evans-Smith, is serving a twenty-year sentence at Virginia’s Staunton Correctional Center for the 1985 murder of his wife, Barbara Evans-Smith. He was first convicted after a jury trial and sentenced to five years imprisonment in August 1985. That conviction was overturned on appeal to the Virginia Court of Appeals on the ground that much of the evidence used to obtain the conviction was either improperly admitted hearsay evidence or evidence that was more prejudicial than probative.

A second trial was set and Evans-Smith moved for a change of…