PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court is scheduled to rule Wednesday on the automatic appeal of the death sentence of a Mesa man who represented himself and pleaded guilty in the fatal shooting of his girlfriend's ex-husband.
Aaron Brian Gunches was resentenced to death in 2013 after the state high court overturned his first death sentence in 2010 because the court said jurors erred in deciding the 2002 killing of Ted Price was "especially heinous or depraved."
That circumstance was one of two so-called "aggravating factors" that jurors in the 2007 sentencing said warranted a death sentence.
Gunches shot Price four times.
Juries in both sentencings concluded Gunches' previous conviction for a serious offense, attempted murder, supported a death sentence.
Gunches didn't request leniency or present mitigation evidence during his second sentencing.