PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court this morning upheld the conviction and nine death sentences imposed against Mark Goudeau, the "Baseline Killer.''
In a 76-page opinion, the justices rejected a series of claims by Goudeau's attorneys that there were errors in the trial, in which he was convicted on killing nine people during a series of crimes that terrorized the Phoenix area about 10 years ago. That included questions about the legality of one of the search warrants as well as the fact that the police used all of the DNA it had in testing, leaving none for Goudeau's legal team.
Potentially most significant, Justice John Pelander, writing for the unanimous court, rebuffed Goudeau's claim he was entitled to separate trials for the different slayings, rapes and robberies.
Jurors in 2011 found Mark Goudeau, then 47, guilty of the nine murders and 58 other charges, including kidnapping and rape. They sentenced him to death on each of the nine murder counts.
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According to Goudeau, jurors might have been swayed by the sheer number of charges and the mountain of evidence, finding him guilty even in cases where the evidence was weak.
Pelander, however, said the only disputed issue in the case was the identity of who committed the murders and assaults. He said that made it relevant for jurors to have all of the evidence of all of the crimes.
"The similarly of attributes and actions of the perpetrator in the different chapters (of the spree) tended to show that the offenses were also of the same or similar character,'' Pelander wrote. "The state proffered many similarities among the chapters supporting the trial court's finding that Goudeau was more likely than not the perpetrator.''
