Death row inmate murder conviction overturned

INDIANAPOLIS -- An Anderson man who has spent more than 20 years on Indiana's death row could be freed because polygraph test results were never admitted in court.\nThe 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago on Tuesday overturned Mark Allen Wisehart's 1983 murder conviction, ruling that a trial judge should have taken steps to determine whether one juror's knowledge of the polygraph test had tainted the verdict.\nWisehart, 42, was sentenced to death in Madison Superior court for stabbing 65-year-old Marjorie R. Johnson 26 times and fracturing her skull during a 1982 robbery. Upon his arrest, Wisehart gave a confession, admitting he had stabbed Johnson several times with several weapons, punching her with his fist, and striking her in the head with a whiskey bottle. He stated he took $14 and admitted he was the one who tipped off police. \nIn an affidavit presented at a 1994 appeal hearing, one of the jurors said she reported for jury duty and was told court would not be held that day because Wisehart was scheduled to take a polygraph test.\nShe said she never learned the outcome of the test. Polygraph results are not admissible as evidence in Indiana courts.\nStill, the three-judge panel ruled Tuesday, the judge should have questioned the juror about how she reacted to finding out about the test.\n"From the fact that the trial resumed after the test, had she assumed that Wisehart had flunked it?" the judges wrote. "If so, had she thought polygraph tests such reliable detectors of lies that she inferred that Wisehart must be guilty?"\nBut the woman was never questioned about the polygraph in 1983 or 1994, leaving open the possibility of jury bias, the ruling said.\nWisehart also did not have the opportunity to either rebut or admit the test results, depending upon whether he had failed or passed them, the judges said.\nThe Court of Appeals vacated Wisehart's conviction and directed that the state either release him, retry him or conduct another post-conviction hearing to address the issue of jury bias.