Debra Milke Back In Court Friday

August 23, 2013

A woman once convicted in connection with the murder of her 4-year-old son will be in court Friday.

Debra Milke was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of her son. That conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court earlier this year.

Milke’s attorney is trying to have the county prosecutor removed from the case.

The appeals court overturned Milke’s conviction, saying that prosecutors did not disclose that police Detective Armando Saldate, who was a key witness, had a "long history of lying under oath and misconduct."

Saldate testified at trial that Milke had confessed to the murder, but he was the only one in the room and did not record the confession. Milke denied ever confessing.

The court ordered the U.S. Attorney and Department of Justice to initiate an investigation into whether Saldate’s conduct and that of his supervisors and other state and local officials, amounts to a pattern of civil rights violations.

Now Milke’s lawyer wants Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery removed from the case saying the prosecutor has a conflict of interest because he’s under investigation by the DOJ.

Meanwhile Milke’s re-trial is scheduled for next month. Two other men were convicted of the boy’s murder and remain on death row.