Leslie Small to serve two life terms

A Delaware Superior Court judge has sentenced convicted murderer Leslie Small to two life prison sentences without the possibility of parole.

A Sussex County jury sentenced Small to death in 2011, but that sentence was overturned by Delaware Supreme Court.

Small was convicted in July 2011 of the 2009 murder of June McCarson, 78. Small, a 56-year-old cab driver from Milton, had driven McCarson to the bank and other locations before driving her to her Lewes home. Once inside her home, Small attempted to strangle McCarson to death. When she didn't die, Small went to the kitchen and got a pair of scissors that he used to stab her repeatedly. Small said at trial that he wanted to steal her pocketbook to buy crack cocaine.

Small was charged with two counts of first-degree murder for fracturing McCarson's spine and breaking a bone in her neck while strangling her and another for stabbing her.

After the trial jury sentenced Small to death, his attorneys appealed the sentence to Delaware Supreme Court, saying prosecutors made misleading comments to the jury. During oral arguments at his sentencing appeal, attorney Nicole Walker told the five-justice panel that prosecutors tried to convince the jury that the mitigating circumstances in Small’s case were just excuses for his actions.  She said past cases have determined that referring to mitigating factors as excuses is a reversible error, so Small deserved a new penalty hearing.

The Supreme Court agreed, and nearly two years after recommending a new penalty phase, Small was resentenced by Judge T. Henley Graves.

Small, a physically imposing man at 6-feet-4 inches tall and more than 200 pounds with a bald head and glasses, said nothing at his Oct. 10 sentencing.

Small’s attorney, Dean Johnson, said he would file for postconviction relief based on Small’s inability to read.

At trial, Small was also convicted of five other criminal charges related to the murder. Graves upheld his sentence on those charges