A federal appeals court has sided with a district court that denied an Arizona inmate's challenge to his conviction and death sentence.
Richard Harley Greenway says he had ineffective counsel in his trial for the March 1988 murders of a Tucson woman and her 17-year-old daughter.
The 48-year-old Greenway has been on death row since 1989.
Greenway says his lawyers failed to prevent a possibly biased juror from being empanelled and didn't present an overall defense theory.
In a 21-page opinion released Thursday, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the district court "did not err in denying Greenway's claims."
The 9th Circuit heard Greenway's first federal appeal in 2011 and sent his case back to district court for further proceedings on the ineffective counsel question.
