An appeal by David Lee McNish, who was sentenced to death in 1984 for the beating death of a 70-year-old woman in Elizabethton, Tennessee, was denied Monday by the state Supreme Court.
The court rejected eight issues raised by McNish in his post-conviction appeal, including whether electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment and whether he was denied his right to the effective assistance of counsel. Other issues raised were whether the prosecutor withheld information vital to the defense; whether the aggravating circumstance jurors used to impose the death sentence was constitutional; whether jury instructions during the sentencing phase of his trial were proper; and whether McNish received a full and fair post-conviction hearing.
The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed McNish’s first degree murder conviction and death sentence on direct appeal in 1987. McNish filed a petition for post conviction relief in 1990, which was denied by the trial court in 1997 and by the Court of Criminal Appeals in 1999.
McNish’s victim, Gladys Smith, was bludgeoned to death with a glass vase in the apartment where she lived alone. McNish, 31 at the time of the crime, was acquainted with the victim because his parents and girlfriend lived in the same apartment building. Police found bloodstained trousers in the car in which McNish was riding at the time of his arrest. Tests showed the blood matched that of the victim. McNish claimed his pants became bloody when he found her lying in the kitchen of her apartment and attempted to move her into the living room.
“The jury obviously did not accept appellants version of the events¼ the Supreme Court wrote in 1987. In sentencing McNish, jurors found the crime was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of mind.