DOVER, Del. (AP) - Lawyers for a taxi driver sentenced to death for the fatal stabbing of a 78-year-old Sussex County woman are asking the state Supreme Court to grant him a new penalty hearing.
An attorney for 54-year-old Leslie Small argued Wednesday that prosecutors improperly suggested at his trial that defense lawyers were simply making excuses for his behavior. Small's attorneys presented mitigating factors about his troubled childhood and substance abuse.
The defense also told justices that the trial judge should not have allowed the prosecution's psychiatric expert to tell jurors that Small refused to talk to him about the 2009 murder of June McCarson.
Deputy attorney general Paul Wallace argued that prosecutors acted properly and that Small's death penalty should stand.
