Federal court denies 30-year-old homicide appeal

The federal Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a homicide defendant’s appeal after several lengthy court battles that began in 2004.

Carl Case was one of several young men convicted for the rape and murder of a Nancy Mitchell, a 16-year-old Carlsbad High School cheerleader in 1982. More than 20 years after he was convicted, students at the UNM Law School questioned two of the three key witnesses who later recanted their testimony.

The two recanting witnesses, in addition to previously undisclosed evidence from a trial witness, prompted Case’s attorneys to file an appeal in 2008.

After the lengthy appeals process, the federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the new evidence was not sufficient to require a new trial, and that Case’s due process rights were not violated through an unfair trial.

The appeals court’s opinion reads, in part, “We are satisfied that Case’s due process rights were not violated and that he received a fundamentally fair trial. We are also satisfied that the newly discovered evidence he points to does not require a new trial, a point of agreement we have with the New Mexico Supreme Court,” according to a news release from the state Attorney General’s office.