Jurors said he contracted the killing. What did the Georgia Supreme Court say?

The Georgia Supreme Court upheld Monday the murder conviction and sentence of life without parole for a former Cordele trucking company owner convicted of hiring a hit man to kill his former business partner.

The hit man killed the wrong guy.

In 2015, a Houston County jury found Devasko Lewis guilty of hiring Jamarcus Clark to kill federal witness Corey Daniels. But Clark botched it — killing Daniels’ nephew Kerry Glenn by mistake on Jan. 14, 2014, behind Daniels’ home near Perry.

Lewis was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, plus 10 years. The federal case was dismissed due to his life sentence.

Lewis adamantly denied hiring Clark to kill Daniels.

Attorneys for Lewis sought to have the conviction and sentence thrown out, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to prove him guilty.

But justices unanimously found that the evidence was sufficient for the jury verdict based on a case precedent established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1979 in Jackson v. Virginia, according to a case summary prepared by a Supreme Court spokeswoman.

Attorneys for Lewis also argued that he should have been granted a new trial because Clark later recanted his testimony. Clark, who is serving a life sentence for the killing, was the chief witness against Lewis.

Clark wrote in a letter that he had testified against Lewis at trial because the district attorney had told him he would “go easy” on him if he told them about Lewis.

Although Lewis claimed that Clark’s letter showed that his trial testimony had been the “purest fabrication,” justices disagreed.

“Here, even if Clark had verified the contents of the letter under oath (which he did not) the evidence would consist only of the witness’ recantation that would merely serve to impeach his previous sworn testimony, and not independent evidence that illustrates the impossibility of the facts to which the witness previously testified,” according to the opinion.

This story was originally published August 14, 2017 at 12:03 PM with the headline "Jurors said he contracted the killing. What did the Georgia Supreme Court say?."