The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence for a man who was convicted of first degree felony murder in 1991 for his role in the killing of an elderly couple during a string of burglaries near the Land Between the Lakes region.
In June 1988, William Eugene Hall escaped from a Kentucky prison with seven other inmates. Three of the inmates were captured near the prison, but Hall and four others were able to steal a pickup truck and drive into Stewart County, Tennessee, where they burglarized numerous residences in and around the Leatherwood community. On June 22, 1988, police discovered the bodies of Myrtle and Buford Vester, who had been shot and stabbed to death inside their home. Their car and other items were missing.
Hall was eventually captured in Texas and brought to trial in Humphreys County with a co-defendant, Derrick Quintero. Hall and Quintero were each convicted by a jury of two counts of first degree felony murder, three counts of grand larceny, one count of petit larceny, and three counts of first degree burglary. They were each sentenced to death for the murder of Myrtle Vester, and to life in prison for the murder of Buford Vester. In the late 1990s, the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Supreme Court affirmed their convictions and sentences.
Hall and Quintero then began the post-conviction process, claiming that their attorneys had been ineffective during the original appeal, and that new evidence would prove their innocence. In 2009, the Supreme Court denied post-conviction relief for Quintero but granted relief for Hall, finding that his attorneys had simply copied the original appellate brief filed by Quintero’s attorneys. Because of this, the Court said Hall was entitled to new attorneys and the opportunity to file an amended motion for new trial and to proceed with a delayed appeal.
Now, after reviewing the various claims filed by Hall’s new attorneys, the Supreme Court has again affirmed Hall’s convictions and sentence of death. Chief Justice Sharon G. Lee filed a separate concurring opinion, in which she agreed that Hall’s death sentence is proportionate to the sentences imposed in similar cases, but reiterated her disagreement with the manner in which this Court reviews the proportionality of death sentences among all defendants in similar cases.
Read the majority opinion in State of Tennessee v. William Eugene Hall, authored by Justice Gary R. Wade, and the concurring opinion, written by Chief Justice Lee.