HOUSTON (AP) - A convicted killer on Texas death row for 20 years has had his death sentence thrown out by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

The state's highest criminal court says Harris County jurors who decided Roy Gene Smith should be executed were not allowed to properly consider mitigating evidence of Smith's crime-ridden Houston neighborhood and that he was surrounded by poverty and crime throughout his life. Evidence rules in death penalty cases have changed since he was tried in 1990. The case now returns to court for a new punishment trial.

The 51-year-old Smith was condemned for October 1988 slaying of 67-year-old James Whitmire. Evidence showed he used some of the $4.27 taken from his victim to buy his girlfriend a hot dog.

Smith also has a life prison term in another case.

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