The Arizona Supreme Court reduced the death sentence of man who doused his own daughter with gasoline and watched her burn to death more than a decade ago in east Mesa.
The court ruled in a decision announced Wednesday that Grell's sentence will be natural life in prison, without possibility of parole, because of evidence he is mentally retarded.
Grell was sentenced twice to death for the gruesome murder of his 2-year-old daughter, once by a judge and once by a jury, with both focused on whether he is retarded and if he could be held responsible for her death.
"We are fully aware of the horrific nature of this crime and the devastation it has brought upon Kristen's family," Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch wrote in the ruling.
"But given the recognition under our Constitution that defendants with mental retardation are less morally culpable for their crimes ... Grell is ineligible for execution," the ruling said.
Kristen Salem's murder on Dec. 2, 1999, is considered among the most heartless and senseless crimes in the East Valley.
Grell picked up Kristen at a day-care center, took her out to the desert on the eastern fringe of Mesa, doused her with gasoline and lit her on fire.
But the issue of whether Grell is mentally retarded has dominated the case for more than a decade. Grell pleaded guilty to murdering his daughter, leaving the mental retardation issue the focus of his sentencing.
Now-retired Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Barbara Jarrett sentenced Grell to death in 2002, ruling that Grell's attorneys did not prove conclusively that he is mentally retarded.
The state Supreme Court ordered a 2nd sentencing when Arizona's death penalty law was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which required that jurors, not judges, establish the aggravating factors for the death penalty.
After the evidence was presented to jurors, they sentenced Grell to death again in 2009, a ruling that triggered an automatic appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court.
Source: The Arizona Republic, January 9, 2013
