Technicality May Let Prisoner Walk

A federal appeals court has overturned the 1995 murder conviction of Mathew Musladin ruling that courtroom spectators who wore pictures of the slain man may have biased jurors.

Musladin was convicted of murdering his estranged wife's fiance in 1994. In ordering a new trial, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the buttons worn by murder victim Tom Studer's family while they sat in the front-row gallery might have influenced the jury.

"The buttons essentially argue that Studer was the innocent party and that the defendant was necessarily guilty," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the court, whose vote was 2-1.

"Our whole family was just totally taken aback" upon hearing the news, says the victim's brother, Jim Studer. He tells The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen there were "a lot of tears shed, and it's totally unreal to think that this could allow this person to go free, just because we wore a picture of my brother on a little button."

He adds, "I don't understand the logic behind it, because a picture of a person -- I don't see how that would make a person innocent or guilty. Sitting in the courtroom, if we hadn't had the picture of him, I don't see how it's any different from having the picture of him."

In dissent, Judge David Thompson wrote that the buttons were a symbol of a family's grief.

"The jurors actually had several pictures of him to look at," Jim Studer says. "The defendant's family was in the courtroom as well. So I don't see how a picture of a victim could show that a person is innocent or guilty. It's just a picture of that person to kind of make it a little bit more real for the jurors."

What's more, Studer says, the buttons were small and probably couldn't be seen clearly from where the jurors were sitting.

Musladin, who is serving a life sentence, maintained he acted in self-defense when he shot Studer in 1994, because Studer was pointing a gun at him.Jim Studer says Tom came to the aid of Tom's fiancé, who was in a fight with Musladin, and Musladin shot Tom twice.

In dissent, Judge David Thompson wrote that the buttons were a symbol of a family's grief.

In 1990, the San Francisco-based appeals court tossed out a rape conviction on grounds that jurors might have been prejudiced because people observing that trial wore pins reading "Women Against Rape."

The U.S. Supreme Court said in 1976 that jurors might also be wrongly influenced if prisoners are forced to wear prison garb with their shackles on display in court.

The Santa Clara County, Calif., district attonry has said he would try to take this case all the way to the Supreme Court as well.