MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- State appeals court ruled unanimously on Friday that a death sentence was appropriate for a kidnapping and murder that took place in Houston County, Alabama.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, in another case on Friday told a judge to rewrite his sentencing order explaining why he approved a death sentence for a killing in Calhoun County in north Alabama.
Focusing on the Houston County case, the Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the capital murder conviction that Michael Jerome Lewis received for the beating and shooting death of Timothy John Kaye.
Records from the trail showed that when they got into a fight at a mobile home in Houston County on April 25, 1997. Kaye according to sources was then taken across the state line and dumped in the Choctawhatchee River in Holmes County, Florida.
Michael Jerome Lewis, on court appeal contended there were several errors at his trial and that he shouldn't have received the death penalty. In a 131-page decision, Judge Kelli Wise rejected his arguments in a 131 page decision on Friday, and said that the death penalty was appropriate because "similar crimes have been punished by death on numerous occasions."
There was another capital murder case sources said on Friday. In that case the appeals court upheld the capital murder conviction of Ellis Louis Mashburn Jr. for killing Clara Eva Birmingham and Henry Owen Birmingham Jr. with a knife and hatchet at their home in Alexandria in October 2002.
The appeals court did sent bacl the case to Calhoun County Circuit Judge Samuel Monk to rewrite his sentencing order explaining why he approved the death penalty for Mashburn earlier. The appeals court said in it's remarks that the sentencing order didn't meet all the necessary requirements in the case.
