The Tennessee Supreme Court has denied an appeal by Richard Hale Austin, sentenced to death in 1977 and again this year for hiring an escaped convict to kill Julian Watkins, an undercover agent with the Memphis Police Department.
In 1997, the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Austin’s conviction but reversed his sentence based on ineffective legal representation during the sentencing phase of his trial. Another Memphis jury resentenced him to death in March 1999 for arranging the execution-style murder of Watkins.
In the appeal denied Monday by the Tennessee Supreme Court, Austin, 60, claimed he was entitled to reopen a previous post-conviction petition because no woman had served as grand jury foreperson in Shelby County between 1962 and 1977, when he was indicted. Austin, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision, alleged that the exclusion violated his constitutional rights.
Austin’s victim was a vice squad undercover agent when he was shot to death. Watkins was to be a key witness for the prosecution against Austin and others charged with involvement in an illegal gambling operation.