Today, a new Hamilton County jury will determine if a man already sentenced to die should go back to death row. Rayshawn Johnson was convicted of murdering his neighbor Shannon Marks more than a decade ago but because of a problem during his sentencing phase all those years ago, he'll be re-sentenced by a new jury.
Johnson has already been convicted for beating his female neighbor to death with a baseball bat-that conviction was not overturned. But his sentence was when, during his death penalty appeals in 2008, federal judges ruled that Johnson's lawyers did not adequately represent him during the sentencing portion of his trial.
Starting this morning, a new jury will hear all of the trial evidence. The new jurors will then decide whether Johnson deserves life in prison or death row.
Johnson's lawyers will try to humanize him by arguing that he grew up in an abusive household and he suffered at the hands of his drug addicted mother and alcoholic grandmother. Prosecutor Joe Deters says Marks, whose skull was crushed from 13 blows by a baseball bat, suffered far worse.
The re-sentencing is expected to last at least two weeks.
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