PHOENIX (AP) - The Arizona Supreme Court has again upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of first-degree murder for one of two killings during a 1991 series of Phoenix-area burglaries.
The state Supreme Court's ruling Monday says that mitigating evidence supporting leniency for Charles Michael Hedlund didn't outweigh aggravating evidence supporting a death sentence.
The justices had previously upheld Hedlund's death sentence but the sentence was overturned by a federal appeals court in a ruling that prompted the state high court to review Hedlund's sentence again.
The justices in September upheld two death sentences for James Erin McKinney, Hedllund's half-brother and co-defendant, in the killings of Christine Mertens and Jim McClain in 1996.
