The Nation - News from Feb. 17, 1985
A woman convicted of conspiring to murder U.S. District Judge John Wood was granted a new trial by a federal appeals panel that also upheld the conviction of the gunman hired to kill the judge. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ordered a new trial for Elizabeth Chagra, found guilty of conspiracy in the 1979 shooting death of Wood in San Antonio. The conviction was reversed because U.S. District Judge William S. Sessions gave the jury an erroneous instruction in the case. The three-judge panel upheld the murder conviction of Charles V. Harrelson, who was found guilty of assassinating Wood for $250,000.
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