Court upholds death sentence for Cobb slaying

The federal appeals court in Atlanta on Thursday upheld the death sentence against one of the longest-serving members on Georgia’s death row.

Brandon Astor Jones stands convicted for the killing of Roger Tackett, the manager of a Tenneco convenience store in Cobb County during a robbery on June 16, 1979. Jones was sentenced to death at a trial held that same year, but a federal judge later granted him a new sentencing trial because jurors had improperly been allowed to bring a Bible into the deliberation room. Jones was re-sentenced to death during a second trial in 1997.