A Houston, Texas, federal judge refused an appeal by a death row inmate who said his lawyer slept through his murder trial, according to the Houston Chronicle.

George McFarland was sentenced to death in 1992 in connection with the robbery and murder of a local grocer by a group of men. While there was no physical evidence tying him to the murder, his primary attorney, John Benn, dozed off several times during the four-day trial, according to the Chronicle. None of his alleged collaborators were arrested and he was identified in a photo line-up by a witness whose additional description of the shooter did not match him, according to the Chronicle.

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Despite this, U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes ruled McFarland had received adequate representation because at least one of his two lawyers had been awake throughout the trial, according to the newspaper. The other attorney, Sanford Melamed, had never tried a capital murder case before.

"This is not a case where the trial court ignored a defendant's constitutional rights," Hughes wrote. "The prosecution engaged in no misconduct. While not perfect, the attorneys made efforts to defend McFarland. Viewing the evidence and McFarland's choice in trial, McFarland has not shown that a different strategy would have ended in a different result. It is regrettable that Benn slept through trial. That does not change the fact that the court of criminal appeals did not misapply the law."