The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has thrown out the death sentence for a man convicted of killing a Houston police officer nearly 20 years ago.
HOUSTON, TEXAS (AP) -- The state's highest criminal court says 65-year-old Carl Wayne Buntion is entitled to a new punishment trial because a jury instruction was improper at his 1991 capital murder trial. Buntion was convicted of gunning down 37-year-old James Irby, a Houston motorcycle officer who pulled over a car in which Buntion was a passenger.
At the time of the June 1990 shooting, Buntion had been on parole only six weeks. He'd been let out of prison for the latest of about a dozen convictions over a nearly 30-year period.
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