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In
a 3-2 decision, the court's majority concluded the death
sentences pending against convicted killers Timothy Allen and
Robert Fry were unlawful because they were disproportionately
harsh compared with penalties imposed in similar murder cases.
New Mexico repealed capital punishment in 2009, but Allen and
Fry's death sentences remained intact because they were
convicted and sentenced years earlier.
Even before repeal, executions were rare in New Mexico. In more
than half a century, the state has put only one person to death
- Terry Clark, by lethal injection in 2001 for the kidnapping,
rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl.
Allen, 55, was condemned for the kidnapping, attempted rape and
murder of 17-year-old Sandra Phillips in 1994, according to a
synopsis of the case from the state's Administrative Office of
Courts.
Fry, 45, was sentenced to death for fatally stabbing and
bludgeoning Betty Lee, a mother of five, in 2000. Fry was
separately sentenced to life in prison for three other murders
in 1996 and 1998, the courts office said.
After the state abolished the death penalty 10 years ago, the
two men raised that issue in separate sentencing appeals that
were ultimately combined and heard as a single case by the state
Supreme Court.
Comparing their crimes to "other equally horrendous cases in
which defendants were not sentenced to death, we find no
meaningful distinction which justifies imposing the death
sentence upon Fry and Allen," the court's majority wrote in its
144-page opinion.
The decision sends both cases back to the trial-level court in
New Mexico's San Juan county to impose new sentences of life
imprisonment.
In a dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Nakamura Judith said the
state legislature's repeal of the death penalty was meant only
to apply to murders committed after July 2009, and that the
court's majority was effectively going beyond that mandate.
Under state sentencing laws, convicted felons are eligible for
parole after serving 30 years of a life term. But Fry will never
be eligible for release because he faces a minimum of 120 years
for all four of his first-degree murder convictions, the
justices said.
Allen faces an additional 25 years behind bars after serving his
murder sentence, according to the state courts office.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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