Floyd Bledsoe, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering his 14-year-old sister-in-law back in 1999, was freed from prison last fall after a federal judge determined that Bledsoe didn't have the benefit of an effective lawyer during his original trial.
A federal appeals court, though, has overruled that judge and ordered Bledsoe back to prison.
Zetta “Camille” Arfmann was killed in Jefferson County, Kan. It's an unusual case because Bledsoe's brother, Tom, originally confessed to the killing, even leading police to Camille's body, but he later took it all back and named Floyd as the killer.
There had to be *some* evidence in this case. What was it?
Posted by: FanDanGo | Monday, June 29, 2009 at 09:41 AM
Wonder if they're related to Ray Bledsoe.
Posted by: Brad | Monday, June 29, 2009 at 10:15 AM
One wonders what evidence there actually was against THIS guy. It is not unusual for there to be lots of evidence that a crime was committed -- and that can overwelm a jury's thinking, even when there is little or no evidence against that particualr defendant.
Frankly, a case has to be pretty weak to motivate a federal district judge to release a guy on these kinds of charges. Unfortunately, the federal appeals Courts have been packed with right-winger by Bush, so actual innocence of a crime may not bother them much.
Posted by: KC Cicero | Monday, June 29, 2009 at 12:46 PM
Not really. "Ineffective assistance of counsel" can mean "we don't like your lawyer" but the lower courts and state supremes would have already ruled on the effectiveness of counsel. So now three tribunals say the guy's lawyer was not ineffective.
Still, a few facts about the case would have been ... useful.
Posted by: FanDanGo | Monday, June 29, 2009 at 03:48 PM