Atlanta, GA – The federal appeals court in Atlanta has turned down a bid for a new trial by a man convicted of the shooting death of a Birmingham, Ala., woman in 1992.
Michael Jeffrey Land claimed an incriminating statement made after police coercion was improperly admitted at his first trial in the May 1992 killing of 30-year-old Candace Brown, who was missing for several days before hikers found her body in an abandoned limestone quarry on Brimingham's Ruffner Mountain.
Land also claimed in a habeas corpus petition that he received ineffective assistance of counsel in both the guilt and penalty phases of the trial.
A federal judge denied his petition, and a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision on Friday.
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