SACRAMENTO - Ruling that a Los Angeles prosecutor acted in bad faith by arguing inconsistent murder theories to two different juries, the California Supreme Court on Thursday tossed out the death sentence of one of two defendants in a grisly murder case.State and federal appellate courts have taken different views on whether multiple defendants can be tried under different theories in separate trials. A case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court deals with the issue, Stumpf v. Mitchell, 367 F.3d 594 (2004).

In their decision, California's high court justices held that Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Steven Ipsen violated the due process rights of defendant Peter Sakarias during his 1991 trial by presenting jurors with a different theory of the case than the one he argued to convict accomplice Tauno Waidla in a separate trial.


http://pda-appellateblog.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_pda-appellateblog_archive.html
click on the link if you want to read the full story.....:(

Odd that only one case, and not both, has been overturned. Surely an inconsistency applies to both cases equally.

I bet they over turn the second one as soon as the other man's attorney can file. I wish that when a person is completely exonerated and the facts apply to an accomplice, they would release them both instead of prolonging they other person's agony!