The latest attempt by former Fort Bragg doctor Jeffrey MacDonald to get a new trial for the murders of his wife and children has been postponed a month by revisions to North Carolina's Racial Justice Act.
MacDonald's case had been scheduled for a hearing on Aug. 20 to review new evidence at the federal courthouse in Wilmington. At the request of MacDonald lawyer Gordon Widenhouse, U.S. District Judge James C. Fox on Monday moved the hearing to Sept. 17.
In court papers requesting the delay, Widenhouse said he needs to spend July and August assisting 11 death row clients who have claims pending under the Racial Justice Act. This is a state law that that allows defendants on North Carolina's death row to try to prove that racism in the court system unjustly and illegally led to their death sentences.
On July 2, the state legislature made significant changes to the Racial Justice Act and set an Aug. 31 deadline for defendants to update their Racial Justice Act claims in light of the revisions.
Widenhouse said he must visit death row at a Raleigh prison numerous times to see his 11 clients before the deadline and wouldn't have time to work for both them and MacDonald if MacDonald's case were to keep its August schedule.
Prosecutors opposed the delay, saying they are prepared to go forward with the case in August.
MacDonald, 68, is serving life in federal prison for the stabbing deaths of his pregnant wife and two daughters in their home at Fort Bragg in 1970. At the time he was a doctor serving in the Army.
The September hearing is to consider DNA evidence from the crime scene plus claims that a federal prosecutor pressured a witness to lie at MacDonald's trial in 1979.
The technology to test DNA evidence from crime scenes was developed about 10 years after MacDonald was convicted.
http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/...ac=fo.military
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