Ninth Circuit Upholds Death Sentence for Arizona Killer

A unanimous panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction and death sentence of habitual felon Robert Walden Jr.  for the rape and murder of one woman and the rapes of two others in 1991.  Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services reports that at the time of the murders, Walden was on probation for aggravated assault and kidnapping charges stemming from separate attacks on two woman.   On appeal Walden raised multiple claims challenging the photo lineup where his surviving victims identified him, the judge’s decision to allow a single trial for the rapes and the murder, and first time claims challenging the competence of his defense counsel.  The court rejected all of them.

According to the trial record, in May of 1991 Walden forced a woman at knifepoint into a empty laundry room and raped her.  Two weeks later he tricked a woman at a nearby apartment complex into letting him in, allegedly to perform maintenance, then sexually assaulted her.  A month later he raped and killed Miguela Burhans in her midtown Tuscon apartment.  Along with the identification of the two rape victims, Waldon’s fingerprints were found at one rape scene and the murder scene, and witnesses identified him at Ms Burhan’s apartment complex at the time of the murder.  Following his conviction Waldon plead guilty to beating Nola Jean Knight to death in December 1990 and beating Denene Brevaire-Domet to death in February 1991.  The Ninth Circuit’s opinion was written by Chief Judge Sidney Thomas, with Associate Judges Jay Bybee and Sandra Ikuta concurring.

Executions in Arizona have been suspended since 2014.