MACON, Ga. — Editor's note: Video in this story is from previous coverage.
Stephen Mark McDaniel, the man convicted of murdering Mercer Law student Lauren Giddings in 2011, filed a new federal court appeal last week.
McDaniel's appeal claims the state violated his constitutional rights and his lawyers were incompetent.
He said he “discovered evidence demonstrating the State had stolen defense trial preparations” and said his attorneys, Floyd Buford Jr. and Frank Hogue, knew and did nothing in the federal appeal filed June 1.
McDaniel filed a similar appeal against Buford and Hogue in 2018, which a Richmond County judge denied.
In the new appeal, he said his defense attorneys “possessed evidence proving the falsity of vital state testimony but allowed the false testimony to go unchallenged.”
The appeal claims a deputy at the Bibb County Sheriff's Office removed documents from the mail and emailed them to former district attorney Greg Winters, who handled McDaniel’s prosecution.
The documents were “legal information request forms” McDaniel said Winters spread throughout his office “for use in preparing for the case” against McDaniel.
In the appeal, McDaniel claims he didn’t discover this information until July 2017, more than three years after he pleaded guilty to Giddings’ murder. If he had competent lawyers, he believes they would have learned the theft violated his rights and would have challenged the violation sending him “home a free man.”
McDaniel is asking the court to vacate his conviction and plea, and release him from custody and any further prosecution in the Giddings’ case.
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