Federal Appeals Court Ruling

A divided federal appeals court last week granted a Kentucky death row inmate a new sentencing hearing in the rape and murder of a 16-year-old Muhlenberg County girl. 

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals found a state judge should have instructed jurors not to draw any inference from 38-year-old Robert Keith Woodall's decision not to testify on his own behalf.  The decision upheld a ruling by U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell in 2009. Woodall pleaded guilty to the 1997 kidnapping of 16-year-old Sarah Hansen in Greenville.