The Arizona Attorney General’s Office argued at the Supreme Court to uphold the death penalty sentence for David Ramirez and reinstate the first-degree murder conviction of Barry Jones.
“Today is about confronting convicted criminals who seek endless delays in our courts to avoid accepting responsibility for their heinous crimes,” Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a news release. “Upholding the rule of law requires the rejection of erroneous legal arguments and misguided antics designed to delay the administration of justice.”
Arizona Solicitor General Beau Roysden argued the case before the justices on Dec. 8.
In July, Brnovich announced his office asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decisions in two death penalty cases. The Court agreed to hear Brnovich’s appeal in June. Brnovich filed the petition for certiorari at the Supreme Court in January, arguing that the Ninth Circuit had violated a federal statute by basing its decisions in these two cases on evidence the inmates had never before presented to the Arizona courts.
David Ramirez was convicted for the murder of Mary Ann Gortarez and her 15-year-old daughter and sentenced to death in 1989. Arizona courts upheld his murder convictions and death sentences, but the Ninth Circuit remanded his case to the federal district court to consider Ramirez’s claim of ineffective counsel.
Barry Jones was convicted of child abuse, sexual assault, and felony murder of his girlfriend’s four-year-old daughter in 1995, but a federal district court granted him habeas relief based on a new expert testimony that he had not presented in court. In 2019, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the district court to retry him.
“I will always stand up for victims, their families, and our communities,” Brnovich said.
Elizabeth Troutman
Republished with the permission of The Center Square.
