US Supreme Court revives Texas death row inmate?s funding claim

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday revived a bid by a Honduran man convicted of murder in Texas to secure federal funds to press his claim that his trial lawyers neglected to offer evidence to a jury that could have spared him from the death penalty.

The justices threw out a lower court ruling preventing death row inmate Carlos Manuel Ayestas from seeking funds to collect mitigating evidence that could convince jurors in a potential new sentencing hearing that he should not be executed for the 1995 murder of a 67-year-old woman during a Houston home robbery.

On a 9-0 vote, the justices sent the case back to lower courts so Ayestas can mount another attempt to get the funding.