High court bars retrial of man in wife's arson death

<p>The Georgia Supreme Court has ruled that prosecutors cannot retry an Atlanta businessman convicted of killing his wife in a 1993 house fire because they waited more than four years to attempt a retrial.</p><p>The high court said Monday that Fulton County prosecutors had unfairly prejudiced Weldon Wayne Carr's right to a fair trial.</p><p>Carr, who was owner of Hastings Nature & Garden Center, was convicted in 1994 of setting his home on fire to kill his wife, Patricia, after discovering she was having an affair.</p><p>The conviction was overturned in 1997 when the state Supreme Court found the trial judge improperly admitted unreliable evidence that a trained dog had detected a fire accelerant at the scene. The court also cited an illegal search of Carr's home to allow a prosecution witness to view the crime scene, as well as improper access to a CNN television crew to enter Carr's home before the trial while filming a feature on prosecutor Nancy Grace.</p><p>Before deciding whether it would retry Carr, District Attorney Paul Howard's office agreed to hire a new arson expert to investigate the case. But years passed, and no expert was retained.</p><p>Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes said that the case would be dismissed if no expert was hired by Oct. 25, 2001. On that day, prosecutors announced they had hired an expert and were ready to retry Carr.</p><p>But they acknowledged the expert did not conclude the fire was arson, Monday's Supreme Court ruling said.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x28663c0)</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/6/165822