JACKSON – A former bouncer who beat a bar patron to death with a baseball bat nearly six years ago has run out chances with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Danny Allen Westbrook, 46, was sentenced to life in prison in 2007, for the murder of George Sharpe at Buddy’s Inn Lounge in Gulfport. Westbrook was rebuffed five times by the Mississippi Supreme Court on post-conviction petitions to the point of being threatened with sanctions.
The state Court of Appeals upheld Westbrook’s conviction in 2009 and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider his appeal of conviction in 2010.
According to court records, Sharpe came to the Gulf Coast from Virginia to work on rebuilding the St. Louis Bay bridge which had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
On Aug. 22, 2006, Sharpe visited Buddy’s Inn and while there argued with a woman over $20. Westbrook, employed there as a bouncer, asked Sharpe to leave but was later told by other patrons that Sharpe had returned.
Several patrons testified that they saw Westbrook retrieve a baseball bat from behind the bar and go outside to the parking lot where Sharpe was. Westbrook was seen hitting Sharpe in the head with the bat, and Sharpe died of his injuries two days later.
Westbrook’s attorneys argued that Sharpe approached Westbrook in a threatening manner and that Westbrook was “attempting to do his job,” and acted only in self-defense.
Authorities however, said there were no weapons found on Sharpe or in his vehicle.
Westbrook was convicted.
After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider Westbrook’s appeal in 2010, what followed between October 2010 and September 2011 were a series of appeals filed by Westbrook himself seeking consideration of his post-conviction claim that his attorney should have done a better job.
The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in November 2010 that Westbrook had failed to show he had an issue on which he might win a new trial in a post-conviction hearing.
In a post-conviction petition, the Associated Press said an inmate argues he has found new evidence – or a possible constitutional issue – that could persuade a court to order a new trial.
In four following orders, the Mississippi court repeatedly denied Westbrook’s requests to reconsider his earlier petition or consider some new issue.
In response to one of the petitions, Justice Ann H. Lamar warned Westbrook that if he continued, his motions “may be deemed frivolous and may result in the imposition of appropriate sanctions.”
After those rebuffs, Westbrook went back to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in December declined – without comment – to hear his case.
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