JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — A post-conviction petition filed by a Mississippi man convicted of murder in 2002 won’t be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The nation’s high court without comment this week let stand federal district and state court decisions that found Brian Young had raised no issues on appeal that could win him a new trial.
Young was sentenced to life in prison in the stabbing death of Lelie Coleman, whose body was found in her room at the Budget Inn in Pascagoula in 2000.
His original conviction and sentenced were upheld in the state courts in 2004.
Young had argued he deserved a new trial because his lawyer should have done a better job.
He also argued prosecutors violated his rights by waiting a year before indicting him for murder. State courts and a federal district judge said there was no evidence that Young’s defense was compromised by either his lawyer’s work or a year’s delay in his being brought to trial.
Young made the same arguments in a petition to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
That petition was denied by the 5th Circuit last fall.
