Idaho v. Lankford

Mark Lankford and his brother Bryan were both convicted and sentenced to death for the 1983 murders of Robert and Cheryl Bravence, who were brutally murdered while camping in the Sheep Creek area of Idaho County. Lankford (Lankford) appealed his judgment of conviction, arguing the district court erred in multiple ways and that he was entitled to a new trial. The State argued that Lankford failed to prove that reversible error was committed by the district court and that Lankford’s convictions should have been affirmed. After careful consideration of the evidence presented at trial, the Idaho Supreme Court concluded Lankford was entitled to a new trial based on a finding of prosecutorial misconduct: the prosecutor's failure to disclose the full details of an agreement with a key corroborating witness' testimony “'undermines our confidence in the outcome of the trial,' such that we cannot be sure the defendant 'received a fair trial, understood as a trial resulting in a verdict worthy of confidence.'” View "Idaho v. Lankford" on Justia Law