March 12, 2021
A federal appeals court upheld death-row inmates Robert Lee Walden’s convictions in the rapes of three Tucson woman within weeks of each other in 1991, and the murder of one of his victims. It rejected Walden’s claims that he should have been tried separately for each crime and that police influenced witnesses in the case. (Photo by Tim Evanson/Creative Commons)
WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court Friday upheld the convictions of an Arizona death-row inmate for the rapes of three Tucson women, one of whom was murdered, over the course of several weeks in 1991.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Robert Lee Walden’s claims that he should have been tried separately for each crime, and that Tucson police improperly influenced the surviving victims when they picked his mugshot out of a lineup, among other arguments.