Condemned murderer Wilson’s appeal rejected by Atlanta appeals court

Marion Wilson

Marion Wilson

The federal appeals court in Atlanta has, for the second time, rejected an appeal by a man who sits on death row for the murder of a state prison guard in Milledgeville.

In 2016, a deeply divided 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed claims brought by Marion Wilson. But in April, the U.S. Supreme Court disapproved of the way the Atlanta court considered Wilson's case and told it to try again, using a different methodology.

The 11th Circuit did just that and reached the same result in an opinion issued on Friday.

Wilson and co-defendant Robert Earl Butts were both convicted of killing state prison guard Donovan Parks in 1996. The two men asked Parks for a ride outside a Wal-Mart, and when Parks let them inside his car and drove away, Wilson and Butts ordered him to pull over. One of the two men then killed Parks with a shotgun blast to the back of his head.

Butts, also sentenced to death, was executed in May. Wilson's lawyers have contended that Butts fired the fatal shot, while Butts' lawyers claimed it was Wilson who pulled the trigger.

In his appeal, Wilson said his trial lawyers provided unconstitutionally defective representation because they failed to present evidence that could have been used to try and persuade jurors not to impose the death penalty. This included testimony that Wilson may have suffered from brain damage and had been physically abused as a child.

But this was “largely cumulative” to what was presented at Wilson’s trial — that he had a neglectful childhood, Judge Bill Pryor wrote. The jury also heard “a large amount of graphic, aggravating evidence” against Wilson, and it’s reasonable to believe jurors still would have imposed a death sentence even if it had heard the new evidence, Pryor wrote.