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Latest Liggins Conviction Upheld

Stanley Liggins
Stanley Liggins

The latest murder conviction of Stanley Liggins has been upheld by the Iowa Supreme Court.

Thursday it rejected several objections to his conviction for first degree murder:
- that his right to a fair trial was violated by jury misconduct,
- the admission of testimony of a witness in violation of the hearsay rule,
- failing to exclude the testimony of several other witnesses,
- and due process violations.

It was his fourth retrial for the death in 1990 of 9 year old Jennifer Lewis, whose burning body was found in a field near Jefferson Elementary School in Davenport.

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled prosecutors offered sufficient evidence to support a murder charge, that Liggins was not in custody when questioned and voluntarily consented to a search of his apartment, and that testimony related to a jailhouse confession was sufficiently corroborated to be admissible.

Liggins' first two convictions were overturned. A third trial ended with a hung jury, and he was again convicted in a 2019 retrial.