desmirelle wrote:
My guess is that the defense would ask for a COV for the ain't-gonna-happen retrial based upon convenience - the inmate is in Maryland, his wife is in Maryland, blah, blah, blah.

But, as I pointed out earlier, this "conspiracy" has been airtight for 30 years, so the verdict would be the same.  Damn those crime scene techs for destroying ONLY the evidence of intruders!! (Sarcasm is just one of the services we offer...)
LOL, convenience doesn't ONLY mean the convenience of the defendant.  It also means convenience for the prosecution and the courts.  The way I read the rules even a transferred trial would STILL occur in the Carolina's.

As for the conspiracy business:  Benjamin Franklin once said that three men may keep a secret only if two of them are dead.  So, even the most naive of persons KNOWS that there was not then nor is there now a conspiracy in place to make inmate pay for something someone else did.  BESIDES he was never important enough to become the target of a conspiracy except perhaps in his own mind!