PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona Supreme Court ruling Tuesday holds a state prison inmate's convictions and sentences in a 2008 killing in which a fellow inmate was stabbed 114 times with prison-made shanks.
Thomas Michael Riley was sentenced to death in the killing with accomplices of inmate Sean Kelly at the Lewis prison complex in Buckeye.
Court papers say Riley wrote another inmate a letter graphically describing the killing and detailing his quest to become a full member of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang.
According to trial evidence, Kelly was targeted by the gang because he refused to commit an act of violence against another inmate.
