Court upholds federal death sentence

The federal appeals court in Atlanta on Wednesday upheld the death sentence imposed against a man who raped and killed a nurse practitioner after she returned to her North Georgia home from a shopping trip with her fiance.

The court rejected claims raised by William Emmett LeCroy Jr., who sits on death row for the 2001 fatal carjacking of 30-year-old Joann Tiesler. LeCroy’s death sentence was the second capital sentence obtained by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta since Congress reinstated the death penalty for federal crimes in 1988.