LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) The Arkansas Supreme Court says a man who once successfully argued to get off death row isn’t entitled to further hearings that could shorten the life sentence he subsequently received.
Jimmy Don Wooten was convicted in the 1994 shooting death of hiker David LaSalle. Justices ruled 6-1 Thursday that Wooten waited too long to raise claims he suffered mental problems and had a bad lawyer.
LaSalle, from New Iberia, Louisiana, died near the Long Pool Recreation Area in the Ozark Mountains.
Wooten had been sentenced to death but after a review was sentenced to life without parole. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had noted previously that one of Wooten’s appellate lawyers had failed to disclose he had been disbarred in Oklahoma and was later disbarred in Arkansas.
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