12:46 PM CST on Thursday, March 2, 2006

Associated Press

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A jury on Thursday condemned Max Alexander Soffar for a second time, sending him back to death row for a deadly 1980 bowling-alley robbery that killed three people and maimed a fourth.

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Max Soffar

Soffar spent 23 years on death row before his conviction was thrown out in 2004 on grounds of inadequate counsel. The Harris County jury convicted him again of capital murder Feb. 22.

The panel agreed Thursday that Soffar, 50, should return to death row for killing Arden Alane Felsher, 17.

Felsher was shot to death July 13, 1980, when Soffar was robbing Stephen Allen Sims, 25, an assistant manager at the Fair Lanes Windfern Bowling Center in Houston. Sims and Felsher’s boyfriend, Tommy Lee Temple, 17, were also killed in the attack.

Gregory George Garner, 18, was shot in the head but survived and called his parents for help. Garner lost his left eye in the attack and has undergone numerous surgeries to repair his injuries.

Garner testified and his father, Ira, and other relatives attended the trial.

Some of Temple's family members were at the sentencing hearing Thursday.

"I just hope this is over," Temple's mother said. "I don't wanna have to live through this again."

Those family members stayed awhile after the sentence was handed down, so they could go into the jury room and thank the members for coming to the death penalty decision.

Soffar has the chance to appeal.

Soffar was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1981, but the 5^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in 2004.