Rape-Murder Verdict Upheld
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SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court today upheld the death sentence in a 1979 rape-murder case despite two justices who stated that the evidence was “so weak” that they could not in “good conscience” vote for execution.
The majority, by 5-2 vote, found that although it was wrong to allow police to tell jurors that a fingerprint of Russell Coleman found at the scene of the killing was “bloody,” the mistake was a harmless error. Coleman, 36, was sentenced to die for the 1979 rape and murder of Shirley Hill, 27, in a Mission High School classroom.
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