Phoenix: A jury on Thursday returned guilty verdicts against a man charged in the 1991 killings of nine people, including six monks, at a suburban Phoenix Buddhist temple.
Johnathan A. Doody was 17 when he was accused of participating in the slayings at the Wat Promkunaram temple.
He was found guilty in 1993 and sentenced to 281 years in prison. But an appeals court threw out his conviction in 2011 after ruling that investigators improperly obtained his confession.
Deliberations during his second trial were halted several times, including once when a juror was removed from the case after complaining it had become too emotional. The judge eventually declared a mistrial in October after the panel failed to reach a verdict.
Doody`s third trial began Dec 4. He has maintained his innocence.
Jurors got the case on Jan. 13 and yesterday was their fifth full day of deliberations. Jurors found Doody guilty on today of nine counts of first-degree murder and numerous burglary and robbery charges.
The verdict brings an end to a bizarre case that saw three trials over about 20 years on the same charges. Doody again faces life in prison.
He was spared the death penalty in his first trial. Prosecutors couldn`t seek the death penalty in Doody`s retrials because of a 2005 US Supreme Court decision that prohibits authorities from pursuing that punishment against defendants who were younger than 18 years old when the crime occurred.
Allesandro "Alex" Garcia pleaded guilty in the case and was sentenced to life in prison in exchange for his testimony and a promise that prosecutors wouldn`t seek the death penalty.
