The California Supreme Court, in an unusual step, has ordered state prosecutors to respond to defense lawyers' claims that new evidence shows a San Quentin State Prison inmate is innocent of the 1985 murder of a prison guard that sent him to Death Row.
Jarvis Masters' appeal is still a longshot in a court that upholds more than 90 percent of the death sentences it considers. But the circumstances of the Feb. 14 order signed by all seven justices have given Masters' lawyers a glimmer of hope that their 45-year-old client will be vindicated.
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