The death sentence was reinstated on Tuesday for Lisa Jo Chamberlin, 45 (pictured), the only woman on Mississippi's death row
The death sentence has been reinstated for the only woman on Mississippi's death row.
The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals issued the ruling on Tuesday three years after a federal court ruling granted a new trial for Lisa Jo Chamberlin.
Chamberlin claimed that prosecutors intentionally struck black potential jurors from her capital murder trial, reported the Clarion Ledger. She claimed that as a white woman, her rights were violated.
The 45-year-old was convicted of a double homicide committed in 2004.
In 2015, federal District Judge Carlton Reeves ordered a new trial for Chamberlin within four months.
Prosecutors had argued that the black potential jurors were rejected for 'nonracial neutral reasons'.
However, the 5th Circuit panel ruled nine-to-five that allegations of racial bias in jury selection were insufficient and should not have led to Chamberlain's sentence being reversed.
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Share'The prosecution in Chamberlin's case did what it was supposed to do: It rejected some black prospective jurors and accepted others, accepted some white prospective jurors and rejected others,' according to the majority opinion.
'When asked why it struck individual black prospective jurors, it gave specific race-neutral reasons for the strikes.'
The five judges who opposed reinstating the conviction claimed that the prosecution struck more black jurors than accepted - eight strikes and five accepted - and accepted more white jurors than they struck - five strikes and 23 accepted.
Chamberlin (pictured, August 2006) claimed that prosecutors intentionally struck black potential jurors from her capital murder trial. She claimed that as a white woman, her rights were violated. In 2015, a new trial was ordered for Chamberlin and her sentences was reversed
The 5th Circuit panel ruled nine-to-five on Tuesday that allegations of racial bias in jury selection were insufficient and should not have led to Chamberlain's sentence being reversed (Pictured, Chamberlin in August 2004
The dissent also said 62 percent of the strikes exercised were on black jurors, 'despite black jurors making up only 31 percent of qualified prospective jurors'.
Chamberlin was convicted of murdering 37-year-old Linda Heintzelman and Heintzelman's boyfriend, 34-year-old Vernon Hulett, in Hattiesburg in 2004.
Evidence showed the victims were killed after they argued with Chamberlin and her then-boyfriend, Roger Gillett, at a home the four of them shared.
Hulett was hit in the head with a hammer and his throat was slashed. Heintzelman was abandoned after being strangled and stabbed. When her assailants returned to find she was still breathing, she was suffocated with plastic bags. Hulett was decapitated.
Chamberlin (left) and then-boyfriend Roger Gillett (right) were convicted of murdering Linda Heintzelman, 37, and Heintzelman's boyfriend Vernon Hulett, 34, in Hattiesburg in 2004. The pair was arrested after the bodies were found stuffed in a freezer in Kansas in an abandoned farmhouse owned by Gillett's father
In a taped confession played at trial, Chamberlin said the victims were killed because they would not open a safe in Hulett's home, reported the Clarion Ledger
The bodies were stuffed in a freezer and taken to Kansas, where Gillett and Chamberlin were arrested after state agents raided an abandoned farmhouse that Gillett's father owned near the city of Russell.
In a taped confession played at trial, Chamberlin said the victims were killed because they wouldn't open a safe in Hulett's home, reported the Clarion Ledger.
Gillett and Chamberlin were convicted in separate trials of two counts of capital murder.
Chamberlin was sentenced to death row in 2006, and Gillett was sentenced in 2007.
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