The verdicts held—for a time. Robert Springsteen IV had been sentenced to death in 2001. Michael Scott had been sentenced to life in prison in 2002. The prosecution had secured convictions in one of Austin’s most notorious unsolved cases. For several years, the outcome appeared settled. But the foundation of those convictions was never physical evidence. It was the confessions. As the appeals process began, defense attorneys focused on how those confessions had been obtained and how they had been used in court. They examined the transcripts. They reviewed the recordings. They compared what each defendant had said and how those statements had been introduced to the jury. A central issue emerged from that review. At trial, the prosecution had used each defendant’s confession to support the case against the other. Michael Scott’s statements referenced Robert Springsteen. Robert Springsteen’s statements referenced Michael Scott. Jurors heard both accounts as part of a single narrative of the crime. But Scott and Springsteen had been tried separately. Because of that, neither man had the opportunity to directly question the other about those statements in court. The issue reached the appellate courts as a constitutional question...

Sources: 
https://time.com/7321492/yogurt-shop-murders-suspect/
https://people.com/austin-police-significant-breakthrough-murders-4-teen-girls-yogurt-shop-new-suspect-34-years-later-11820020?
https://www.statesman.com/news/local/article/archives-no-dna-match-yogurt-shop-case-21069666.php?
https://allthatsinteresting.com/austin-yogurt-shop-murders
https://allthatsinteresting.com/robert-eugene-brashers

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