Page 3 - Patrick Hardesty News Today

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a man on Arizona's death row should be resentenced because jurors in his case were wrongly told

The 5-4 decision, in an opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said John Montenegro Cruz should get a new penalty phase of his trial where it is made clear to jurors that he is ineligible for parole if he is sentenced to life in prison.

By a 5-to-4 vote, the justices sided with John Montenegro Cruz, who was sentenced to death by jurors who were not told he would be ineligible for parole if they voted for a life sentence.

A lawyer for a man on Arizona’s death row has told the U.S. Supreme Court that jurors in the case were wrongly told that the only way to ensure the man would never walk free was to sentence him to death

A lawyer for John Montenegro Cruz, on death row for the 2003 murder of TPD officer Patrick Hardesty, told the U.S. Supreme Court that jurors were wrongly told to sentence him to death.

Supreme Court justices challenged Arizona's claim Tuesday that a death row inmate should not get a chance to appeal his sentence, based on what one justice called a "Kafkaesque" ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court.

The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of John Montenegro Cruz, sentenced to death for the murder of a Tucson police officer.

The death penalty should not be a game, and unless we stop making it one, I'm through with it.

Supreme Court justices challenged Arizona’s claim Tuesday that a death row inmate should not get a chance to appeal his sentence, based on what one justice called a “Kafkaesque” ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court.

A lawyer for the inmate said that jurors in the case were wrongly told that the only way to ensure he would never walk free was to sentence him to death.