Summary of Offense:
A Valley man has been again sentenced to death for the 1993 killing of a former Arizona Republic reporter during a car-theft bid.
Jurors on Tuesday returned a death-penalty sentence for Efren Medina, 34. Medina was 18 in 1993 when he beat and stomped 71-year-old Carle Hodge, then dragged him into the street and ran over him. Hodge was a former Republic science reporter.
Another man, Ernest Aro, 19 at the time of the crime, was also found guilty in the murder and sentenced in a separate trial to life in prison. Medina was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 but the Maricopa County Superior Court judge who gave the death penalty in 2003 ordered Medina be resentenced after evidence was presented about a delusional disorder the defendant may have been suffering from at the time of the killing.
Medina was re-sentenced to death on January 12, 2010.
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