Prosecutors are trying to persuade a jury to reorder the execution of a convicted murderer who's been on Nevada's death row for 34 years but won a new sentencing hearing when a federal appeals court ruled his rights were violated his original trial's penalty phase.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld 67-year-old Tracy Petrocelli's conviction two years ago in the 1982 killing of a Reno car salesman, months after Petrocelli killed his girlfriend in Seattle.
But the court ruled Petrocelli should have been read his Miranda rights when he thought he was speaking confidentially to a psychiatrist who later testified for the prosecution.
It said the jury that sentenced him to death may have been unjustly influenced by testimony that Petrocelli was a dangerous, incurable psychopath.
The resentencing hearing continues Friday in Reno.
