PHOENIX - The Arizona Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death penalties imposed against Scott Nordstrom for shooting deaths that occurred in connection with a pair of 1996 robberies in Tucson.
Justice Scott Bales, writing for the unanimous court, rejected a series of arguments Nordstrom presented that he said should have allowed him to escape being executed. These range from allegations of prosecutorial misconduct to denial of due process.
In Arizona, murder, by itself, does not permit someone to be sentenced to death. But Bales said there were other circumstances that made the death penalty appropriate in the case of two of the victims; he was sentenced to life without possibility of parole in the other four deaths.
Nordstrom and Robert Jones were charged with killing two men while robbing the Moon Smoke Shop. Two weeks later, they shot and killed four people during a robbery at the Firefighters' Union Hall, a social club.
People are also reading…
Both had previously been sentenced to death, but in 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court, in another Arizona murder case, ruled it was improper for a judge alone to impose the death penalty. The nation's high court said defendants are entitled to make their case to a jury that there is evidence they should be spared execution.
That gave Nordstrom a new chance to have his sentence reduced. But in 2009, jurors concluded he should die.
In upholding the jury's decision, Bales said there was nothing wrong with showing jurors pictures of the bodies. The justice rejected arguments that the photos were designed only to inflame the jurors, saying they were entitled to see the murder scene.
Both robberies were solved when Scott's brother, David Nordstrom, contacted police. He had been the driver in the getaway vehicle.
Jones' death sentence imposed by a judge was upheld before that 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. He remains on death row.
