Supreme Court sets aside death sentence for St. Louis man

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court dismissed a St. Louis death penalty case Monday, setting aside the sentence for William Weaver, convicted of an execution-style murder 20 years ago.

The court cited procedural grounds rather than the prosecutor's inflammatory remarks during the closing statement to the jury, which had been the basis of the case made by Weaver's lawyers.

The court's 6-3 decision upholds a ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Weaver, now 45, was sentenced to death in the murder of Charles Taylor, 48. Taylor was set to be a witness in a federal drug trial.

In the murder trial's sentencing phase, then-St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney George R. "Buzz" Westfall compared the juror's role in sentencing to that of a soldier who knows he has a duty to kill when he sees his friend killed on the battlefield.

"You've got to kill and sometimes you've got to risk death because it's right," said Westfall, who has since died.

He repeatedly asked the jurors to consider their decision as part of the larger war on drugs. "You've got to look beyond William Weaver," he said.

The 8th Circuit Court overturned the death sentence, saying Westfall's comments were improper. The Missouri attorney general's office appealed, arguing that Weaver's appeal should be governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, a 1996 law that limited appeals in capital cases.

In Monday's ruling, the majority wrote in the unsigned opinion that they were required to dismiss the appeal so Weaver's sentence would conform to similar cases.

The court said Westfall had made the same argument in two other cases, including the trial of Weaver's co-defendant, and that other federal courts had thrown out those death sentences before the Death Penalty Act went into effect. The court said it was allowing Weaver to be spared execution "to prevent these three virtually identically situated litigants from being treated in a needlessly disparate manner."

Elizabeth Carver, a partner at the St. Louis law firm Bryan Cave worked with a team of lawyers on Weaver's behalf. She said the court stopped short of laying out any precedent for conduct during sentencing.

"The outcome here is really quirky," Carver said. "It's an unusual opinion, no question."

Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. In a strongly worded opinion, Scalia lashed out at the 8th Circuit Court's decision to overturn Weaver's death sentence.

Scalia wrote that the lower court essentially ignored provisions of the Death Penalty Act that govern capital punishment.