NEW ORLEANS, LA. -- A federal appeals court overturned a Texas death penalty on Monday for a man whose attorney slept through much of his trial for murder, in a case that has raised questions about justice in the state that leads the nation in executions, Reuters reported. The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said Calvin Burdine, 48, should get a new trial because his court-appointed lawyer, Joe Cannon, repeatedly dozed off during the 1984 trial that ended with Burdine being sentenced to death. "A defendant's Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel is violated when that defendant's counsel is repeatedly unconscious through not insubstantial portions of the defendant's capital murder trial," said the court in an opinion supported by nine justices and opposed by five. The decision overturned an Oct. 27, 2000 opinion by a three-judge panel of the court which upheld Burdine's conviction on grounds that Cannon had slept, but not at crucial times in the trial. At the urging of Burdine's attorney, the full court agreed to hear the case. Texas leads the nation with 250 executions since resuming capital punishment in 1982, six years after a U.S. Supreme Court decision lifted a national death penalty ban. Of those, 151 were performed while President George W. Bush was governor of Texas. Bush has said many times he believed the people put to death under his administration got "full and fair access to the courts" and were guilty as charged. Death penalty foes say the number is high because the state does not provide adequate counsel for capital murder defendants who cannot afford to hire their own attorneys. Burdine was condemned for stabbing his friend, W.T. Wise, to death in 1983 in their Houston mobile home. In a 1995 hearing, jurors and court officials testified that Cannon, who is now dead, slept as many as 10 times, for as long as 10 minutes, during the six-day trial. In 1999, U.S. District Judge David Hittner in Houston ordered that Burdine get a new trial, but Texas Attorney General John Cornyn appealed his decision to the Fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans. A Cornyn spokesman could not be reached to say if Monday's ruling would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. If not, Burdine would get a new trial unless prosecutors decide to drop the case. Burdine's attorney, Robert McGlasscock, said he was "pleased and relieved" by the court's decision. "Today, finally, common sense prevailed in this case," he told Reuters. "The court upheld what we've been saying all along -- a sleeping attorney is no attorney at all." McGlasscock said he had not yet spoken to Burdine. \JA\