Federal appeals court overturns 1999 double slaying sentence

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has reversed the life sentence of a Kentucky man convicted of killing two people in eastern Kentucky in 1999.

The federal appeals court ruled that the state must resentence Donald R. Phillips within 90 days or let him out of prison.

Phillips was convicted of killing Osa Lee Maggard and Geneva Young in Leslie County in 1999. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.

The court said in a ruling Wednesday that Phillips’ attorney was ineffective in the sentencing phase of the trial, in which Phillips faced the death penalty. Phillips’ attorney, Stephan Charles, told the trial judge he didn’t “know anything about death penalty litigation.”

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