McFadden sentenced to death by St. Louis County Circuit judge

Once again, Vincent McFadden has received the death sentence.

McFadden was retried in April of this year in the 2003 fatal shooting of his ex-girlfriend's sister. A jury trial again resulted in a first-degree murder conviction.

The Missouri Supreme Court had thrown out his first conviction and death sentence, along with another death penalty sentence and conviction from a separate killing.

Both times, the Supreme Court found, McFadden's equal-protection rights were violated by racial discrimination during the jury selection process. The court said that in both cases, the same prosecutor improperly excluded some potential jurors because, like McFadden, they were black.

The first time he faced trial in the death of Leslie Addison, in 2006, he faced an all-white jury. During this year's trial, the 12- member jury included a black man, a black woman and an Asian woman, according to the public defender's office. McFadden, 28, already had been retried and re-sentenced to death in the other killing.

The death sentence handed down Thursday by St. Louis County Circuit Judge Gary Gaertner Jr. was in line with the jury's recommendation of two months ago.

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