A fractured federal appeals court has overturned the death penalty in a case against an Indiana man who raped and killed a 10-year-old neighbor while out on parole in 1993.

The shocking details of the case against Christopher M. Stevens prompted Indiana lawmakers to pass Zachary's Law, which created the Indiana Sex Offender Registry in 1994. The law was named after Stevens' victim, Zachary Snider.

Stevens has appealed his conviction to four different state and federal courts, claiming his lawyers were ineffective because they did present an insanity defense. All of the courts upheld the conviction and the death penalty.

But on June 18, a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the death sentence hearing against Stevens should be tossed out and reheard using evidence that should have been presented the first time around.

Judges Diane Wood and Kenneth Ripple ruled Stevens' attorneys owed their client a constitutional duty to use a "mainstream" psychologist in their defense against the death penalty instead of the "quack" they presented.

The judges said Dr. Lawrence Lennon did several bizarre things during Stevens' trial, including revealing to the judge and jury that Stevens had engaged in a sex act with the boy's corpse before dumping it off a bridge -- a detail the doctor had never revealed to the defense before he said it on the stand.

When Stevens' lawyers questioned Lennon about his actions, the doctor said he had intended to "turn this all around" on the prosecution, similar to Marlene Dietrich's character in the film, "Witness for the Prosecution," Wood wrote.

Ripple went one step further, saying in a nonbinding minority opinion that the entire case against Stevens should be retried because of his lawyers' use of Lennon in the case.

Meanwhile, U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel Manion said in his separate nonbinding opinion that both the case and the death penalty should remain intact because the evidence against Stevens was so overwhelming that no juror could seriously consider an insanity defense.

Stevens told police he killed the Tippecanoe County boy in May 1993 because he threatened to tell his parents about their ongoing sexual encounters and feared prison time. Stevens first smothered him with a pillow, then strangled him with a cord and finally suffocated him with a garbage bag.

Stevens took elaborate steps to cover his actions, including contacting the boy's family after the killing and offering to help in search efforts. He eventually confessed to the killing to his family and police.