The Arizona Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a man's convictions and death sentence for a killing that prosecutors said was motivated by a desire to become a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist gang.
Vincent Joseph Guarino was convicted of first-degree murder and other crimes in the March 2010 killing in Maricopa County of Chad Rowe, who was kidnapped from his home, then shot and stabbed.
Jurors sentenced Guarino to death for his murder conviction after finding four circumstances that permitted a death sentence.
Those circumstances included that the killing was intended to promote, further or assist the objectives of a criminal street gang or to join one.
Prosecutors have said Guarino's case apparently was the first in Arizona in which jurors found that circumstance.
