One of the lawyers repeatedly slept through trial and the other had never handled a capital murder before. But last week a Houston federal judge decided that was good enough to keep George McFarland on death row, despite his longstanding claims of innocence and a conviction based largely on the testimony of a single, tentative eyewitness.

The Harris County man was sentenced to die in 1992 for the slaying and robbery of a local grocer, a 43-year-old man gunned down while walking back to his store with a bag of cash from the bank. There was never any physical evidence tying McFarland to the murder, but his primary attorney only cursorily prepared for the case, barely consulted with co-counsel, put on no evidence and dozed through key parts of the whirlwind four-day trial.