On September 8, 2011, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit voted 2-1 to overturn Tuite's manslaughter conviction, ruling the trial was unfair because the trial judge limited cross-examination of a prosecution witness. The panel stated in its opinion, "Given the lack of evidence tying Tuite to the crime, the problems with the DNA evidence, the jury's deadlock and compromise verdict, and the weight and strategic position of McCrary's testimony, this case is one of those 'unusual' circumstances in which we find ourselves 'in virtual equipose as to the harmlessness of the error.' O'Neil v. McAninch, 513 U.S. 432, 435 (1995). We must treat the error as affecting the verdict, and we are compelled to grant the writ." "Tuite v. Martel, No. 09-56267." It was noted that during the trial the prosecution could not produce any trace evidence of the house on the defendant's clothing or person nor was any trace evidence of the defendant's person or clothing found in the house, facts that the Court of Appeals cited which led to the Court's determination of lack of evidence. Tuite was granted a retrial, which began on October 24, 2013. In closing arguments, his attorney, Brad Patton, told jurors that Tuite had never been in the Crowe house, and wouldn't have been able to find Stephanie's bedroom in the dark home. In addition, investigators did not find his fingerprints or DNA in the residence. Patton said Stephanie must have been held down under a comforter to keep her quiet, while someone else stabbed her. He also said that experts testified that the blood stains on Tuite's shirts were not there when those shirts were originally evaluated, and got there through contamination during the crime scene analysis. The prosecutor, Deputy Attorney General Alana Butler, said during her closing argument that Tuite was in the area of the Crowe home the night Stephanie was killed. He was knocking on doors and looking for a woman named Tracy, at whom he was angry because she had turned him away a couple of years earlier. He was "obsessed and delusional". Butler said Tuite wandered into the Crowe home at about 10 p.m. through an open door. Once he got in the house, she couldn't tell exactly what happened, but he went into Stephanie's bedroom and stabbed her at least nine times, and her blood was found on two shirts that he was wearing when contacted by police the next day.