Hanson v. Sherrod, No. 13-5100 (10th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseThis appeal arose out of the murders of Jerald Thurman and Mary Bowles in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At trial, a jury convicted defendant John Hanson for the murder of Mary Bowles with malice aforethought and for the felony murder of Thurman. At the penalty phase, the jury found three aggravating circumstances. The trial court sentenced Hanson to death. On direct appeal, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ("OCCA") reversed Hanson's death sentence and remanded for a new sentencing hearing. At the resentencing hearing, the jury again sentenced Hanson to death for Bowles's murder. Hanson appealed his sentence to the OCCA, which struck the jury's finding of the great-risk-of-death aggravator, but still affirmed his sentence. After the OCCA denied Hanson's application for collateral relief, Hanson filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus The district court denied the petition, but it granted him a certificate of appealability ("COA"). The Tenth Circuit also granted a COA on all of his remaining issues. On appeal to the Tenth Circuit, Hanson raised five issues: (1) six instances of ineffective assistance of both trial and appellate counsel; (2) two instances of prosecutorial misconduct; (3) his death sentence should have been invalidated because the OCCA invalidated the great-risk-of-death aggravator; (4) the trial court erred in its jury instruction on mitigating evidence that impermissibly limited the jurors' consideration of mitigation evidence; and (5) cumulative error. After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded none of these issues had merit to warrant reversal of Hanson's sentence. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court's denial of the habeas petition.
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