Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Petition Denied From Death Row In 1988 Murder

Kirt Douglas Wainwright will remain on death row.

Wainwright was sentenced to death for the 1988 murder of Barbara Smith, who was working at a local convenience store at the time. A federal district court ruled recently, Wainwright should get a new penalty-phase hearing or have his sentence reduced to life in prison.

However, prosecutors appealed to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis and Wainwright also asked the court to examine other claims.

The court ruled in favor of the prosecutors.

Wainwright claimed the trial court made a mistake when it allowed a prosecutor to question him about a religious booklet during the penalty phase.

He said during the cross examination, prosecutor Jim Hudson and Danny Rodgers, deputy prosecutor, asked him a bout a "Blood handbook."

When questioned about what the word "blood" meant, Wainwright said, "That means black. Blood means black."

Wainwright was referring to a slang definition of the word some black males use to refer to other men. The booklet in question was a handwritten copy of an Islamic religious text, "Koran Answers for Moorish Children."

According to the appeal, the prosecution mistakenly believed the booklet tied Wainwright to a street gang called "Bloods." The district court concluded the prosecutor was "carried away" on a wave of "gang hysteria." His questioning, according to the district court, made Wainwright appear more dangerous than he was, and this error entitled Wainwright to a new penalty phase.

The appeals court disagreed, saying the district court's ruling was based on unfounded speculation.

"The prosecutor's bigoted views and improper motive in questioning Wainwright about the booklet were not communicated to the jury," the appeals court wrote.

The question and display of the book's cover did not fatally infect the penalty phase, the court ruled.

Wainwright also has a life sentence in the murder of a Hope convenience store employee, which occurred on July 29, 1988.