State of Arizona v. Christopher Michael Montoya

Summary

The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed Montoya’s convictions and sentences, including the death sentence for first-degree murder. It rejected his claims of prosecutorial error, voir-dire and juror-selection error, evidentiary error, unconstitutional mitigation waiver, improper victim-impact evidence, instructional error, and invalid guilty pleas, while finding limited errors harmless. The court independently concluded that the aggravating circumstances and limited mitigation supported the death verdict.