U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong has ordered an evidentiary hearing in the 30-year-old capital case against Marvin Pete Walker, Jr., formerly of Santa Clara County.
Walker, who was convicted of killing a 15-year-old in a botched armed robbery attempt, appealed on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel. Judge Armstrong agreed that he had at least raised doubts sufficient to warrant new inquiries, according to the Mercury News.
State prosecutors insist Walker got a fair trial, but Judge Armstrong wants the hearings to investigate whether or not Walker's former attorney, Dennis Kollenborn, failed to investigate wither Walker's accomplice was the actual gunman, among other alternate crime theories.
— Cynthia Foster
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