State of Arizona, Appellee v. Steven Ray Newell, Appellant

Summary

The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed Steven Ray Newell's convictions for first degree murder, sexual conduct with a minor, and kidnapping, and his death sentence for the 2001 abduction, sexual assault, and ligature-strangulation killing of eight-year-old Elizabeth Byrd. The court held that Newell never unambiguously invoked his right to counsel during his videotaped fourteen-hour interrogation and that his confession was voluntary under the totality of the circumstances; it further rejected his claims that a peremptory strike of the only remaining African-American venire member was racially motivated, that prosecutorial closing remarks required a mistrial, that penalty-phase rebuttal testimony about drug-treatment opportunities was inadmissible, and that precluding his mental health expert violated his privilege against self-incrimination. On independent review, the court found the prior-serious-offense, cruelty, and victim-under-fifteen aggravators supported and the unstable-childhood and drug-use mitigation insufficient to call for leniency.