Prosecutors urge Ga. Supreme Court to reinstate Holsey's death sentence

<p>Convicted murderer Robert Wayne Holsey either has a sophisticated vocabulary and an adequate IQ or a record of school failure and a drunk lawyer who failed to point out his client's deficiencies when Holsey was on trial for his life.</p><p>Armed with school records and trial documents, Holsey's lawyers and state prosecutors clashed again Monday before the Georgia Supreme Court to debate whether he deserves the death penalty for the 1995 killing of a Baldwin County sheriff's deputy.</p><p>Holsey was on death row for the killing of William Robinson when a judge overturned the sentence in May, ruling that Holsey's lawyer didn't go far enough in pursuing a mental retardation defense.</p><p>Senior Assistant Attorney General Susan Boleyn told the judges that Holsey's family never brought up mental retardation or a learning disability during the 1997 trial. She also said he had a "surprising" vocabulary and a recent IQ score that landed him out of the range of mental retardation.</p><p>"He didn't function in society because he was anti-social," she said, not because of a mental deficiency.</p><p>Holsey's attorney, Thomas Dunn, said his client had earned lower scores on the IQ test during earlier takes and logged an adequate score only because he was given an abbreviated version of the test.</p><p>He also noted how Holsey's lawyer during the murder trial, Andy Prince, later testified that during the trial he was drinking a quart of vodka a day.</p><p>"He was an absolute train wreck," Dunn said.</p><p>Robinson was shot to death in December 1995 after he stopped Holsey's car, which matched the description of a getaway vehicle in the armed robbery of a convenience store.</p><p>Ocmulgee District Attorney Fred Bright has said if the state's high court doesn't reinstate the death sentence, he will seek a retrial.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cdc430)</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2006/10/114779