A Houston man on death row for nearly 31 years for the slaying of a woman and her 2-year-old son has accepted a plea deal giving him back-to-back life prison terms.
A federal appeals court two years ago upheld a judge's finding that Michael Wayne Norris deserved a new punishment hearing because jury instructions during the punishment phase at his 1987 trial were improper.
Rather than retry the decades-old case, Harris County prosecutors and Norris' lawyers reached agreement on what essentially will be life without parole for the 60-year-old Norris.
He was convicted and condemned for the November 1986 shooting deaths of 38-year-old Georgia Rollins and her son, Keith. At the time, Norris already was out of prison after serving seven years of an eight-year term for another murder.
