PHOENIX — Convicted murderer Scott Nordstrom will get another chance to have his sentence decided by a different judge.
In a unanimous decision, the state Court of Appeals said John Leonardo, Pima County's presiding judge, should not be the one to decide whether Nordstrom is entitled to have someone other than the judge now assigned to the case handle his resentencing.
Appellate Judge John Pelander pointed out that early in the case Nordstrom exercised his right to have Leonardo removed as the judge handling the trial.
Pelander said that means Leonardo should have no further dealings in anything involving Nordstrom. And that, he said, even includes matters that don't directly affect the resentencing.
Nordstrom was convicted of six murders during two 1996 robberies and sentenced to death in a trial conducted by Pima County Superior Court Judge Michael Cruikshank, actions subsequently upheld by the state Supreme Court.
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But the U.S. Supreme Court subsequently ruled that questions of capital punishment must be decided by a jury and not a judge. That put Nordstrom back in court.
Nordstrom, however, said he wanted a different sentencing judge this time. That motion went to Leonardo as the presiding judge.
But Leonardo denied the request as untimely and "presented no specific legally sufficient basis." And Leonardo rejected Nordstrom's request that someone else make the decision, with the judge saying his actions were purely administrative.
Pelander, however, said Leonardo's decision was, in fact, making a legal ruling on the merits of Nordstrom's arguments. Pelander said once Leonardo was removed from the case, he can no longer play any role in it.
The ruling voids Leonardo's denial of a new judge for Nordstrom's sentencing. But it does not guarantee that Nordstrom will actually get someone else to decide if he should live or die. Instead, it directs Leonardo to assign some other judge to hear the merits of the request.
Nordstrom was convicted of the deaths of two people in the robbery of the Moon Smoke Shop on Tucson's North Side and four others in another holdup two weeks later at the Fire Fighters Union Hall on the South Side of the city.
While he killed two of the victims — the other four were shot by Robert G. Jones Jr. — he was found guilty of all six murders because he took part in the robberies that resulted in the slayings.
Both Nordstrom and Jones were sentenced to death. Nordstrom's brother, David, who was the getaway driver in the first robbery, pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against the others in exchange for the murder charge being dropped. He was sentenced to four years in prison and released in 2000.
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