Judge Stephen McNamee and Murray Hooper Wiki – Judge Stephen McNamee and Murray Hooper Biography
The execution by lethal injection of an Arizona death row inmate scheduled for November 16, 2022, will go ahead as planned after a judge denied his request to postpone it. The judge also denied a request to allow fingerprint and DNA testing on evidence from two 1980s murders that supported the inmate’s death sentence. The Murray Hooper murder trial is being presided over by Judge Stephen McNamee.
Hooper’s lawyers said the evidence could help identify the perpetrators in the murders of William ‘Pat’ Redmond and his mother-in-law Helen Phelps and that there is no physical evidence linking his client to those crimes. They also claimed that the evidence shows that his client is innocent. They claimed that Hooper was convicted at a time before criminal prosecutions could use digital fingerprinting and DNA testing technologies.
Judge Stephen McNamee and Murray Hooper Age
Judge Stephen McNamee’s age is Unkown.
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According to the Nov. 14 ruling by US District Judge Stephen McNamee, the assertion by Hooper’s attorneys that such evidence will invariably prove his innocence was not established. “Even if the forensic evidence establishes what Plaintiff (Hooper) expects him to do, that alone will not invalidate the other evidence used to convict him,” McNamee wrote, according to US News.
According to McNamee, the lack of Hooper’s prints on any evidence will not invalidate eyewitness accounts that he participated in the murders. He paid special attention to Marilyn Redmond’s statement. Authorities claimed that she had been shot in the head on December 31, 1980, when Hooper and two other men broke into the Redmond residence. She testified against Hooper after escaping the assault.
Her attorneys further asserted that prior to identifying her client, who had previously claimed she was not in Arizona at the time, Marilyn Redmond had reviewed her account of her attackers many times. In addition, they questioned the advantages that witnesses who testified against his client received, such as favorable treatment in other criminal cases.
“For 40 years, Mr. Hooper has maintained that he was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death based on corrupt police practices and unreliable witness testimony,” the defense team said. A trial judge had already ruled that the evidence implicating Hooper was substantial, and state courts had previously denied Hooper’s request for evidence.
William Bracy and Edward McCall, two other men who were found guilty of the murders but were never executed, have died over the years. According to authorities, Pat Redmond, a co-owner of a printing press, was killed by Hooper, Bracy and McCall on behalf of Robert Cruz, who is suspected of having connections to organized crime.
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