A convicted armed robber avoided a possible death sentence Thursday by admitting he stabbed a fellow inmate 179 times and agreeing to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Danny Montaño, 36, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in September 1999 in connection with the death of Raymond Jackson, a fellow inmate at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Tucson.
Montaño became entitled to another sentencing hearing, however, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided in June 2002 that jurors should render the sentence in death penalty cases instead of judges.
Rather than go through with the new sentencing hearing, Deputy Pima County Attorney Paul Lauritzen and defense attorney Eric Larsen recently fashioned a plea agreement that required Montaño to plead guilty to first-degree murder and agree to a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
People are also reading…
By doing so, Montaño avoided the death penalty, but he also gave up most of the appellate rights he still had from his 1999 conviction.
Montaño was serving two concurrent life terms on armed robbery convictions when corrections officers found Jackson lying on his bunk in a pool of blood on Aug. 7, 1995.
Montaño's accomplice, David Jimenez, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in May 2000 to escape a possible death sentence. Arizona Department of Corrections records show he was sentenced to 20 years for the slaying and he must serve them after a prior armed robbery sentence.
