NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Lawyers for a Mississippi man facing a federal death sentence in the 2010 slaying of a 12-year-old girl are set to argue his appeal in New Orleans.
Thomas Sanders left his Mississippi family in 1987 and had been declared legally dead. Then he was found and arrested in Gulfport, Mississippi, in connection with the death of Lexis Roberts of Las Vegas.
Defense attorneys plan to argue Monday before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that his conviction should be overturned because a prosecutor improperly suggested to jurors that he might have sexually abused the girl before shooting her and slitting her throat.