News briefs for July 26, 2004

Monday, July 26, 2004 | 9:25 a.m.

Police arrest slaying suspect

A 63-year-old man wanted in the killing of man inside the victim's mobile home near Nellis Air Force Base was arrested Friday in Las Vegas, Metro Police said.

Joe Kelly Armstead was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on suspicion of murder with a deadly weapon on Friday, police said.

Metro detectives and members of the Criminal Apprehension Team took Armstead into custody about 2 p.m. Friday after staking out an apartment at 29 N. 28th St., police said.

Armstead allegedly shot 48-year-old David Leal inside Leal's mobile home in the 4000 block of Las Vegas Boulevard North about 7:35 p.m. on July 17. Leal was pronounced dead later that night at University Medical Center.

High court rejects killer's appeal

The Nevada Supreme Court has rejected the petition of Joseph R. Sanchez, sentenced to consecutive life terms in prison on his conviction for kidnapping, robbing and murdering a teenage boy to obtain the custom auto rims from the boy's car.

Sanchez claimed his trial lawyer was ineffective in representing him because he failed to call witnesses to testify about Sanchez's morals and failed to confer with him on his first appeal to the court.

The court Friday also rejected the claim in the petition for a writ of habeas corpus by Sanchez that his lawyer at trial rendered ineffective assistance by calling the one witness for the prosecution "scumbag" and another a "paid prostitute."

Sanchez and co-defendant Michael Cu were convicted in the death of 16-year-old Fernando Moreno, who was shot seven times with a high-powered rifle about 30 miles northeast of Las Vegas in 1996.

Both men are ineligible for parole until they serve 40 years.

New execution date set for killer

The state Corrections Department set Aug. 12 as the new execution date for Terry Dennis, who strangled a woman during their drinking and sex binge in a Reno hotel room in March 1999.

Dennis, 57, had been scheduled to die July 22 at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City, but the execution warrant was found to be defective so a new date was set Friday.

Meanwhile the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was to hear oral arguments today regarding a petition by Reno lawyer Karla Butko. She wants the court to consider her to be a "next friend" of Dennis. Dennis has rejected further appeals on his behalf, but Butko says he is not mentally capable of making that decision.

Dennis pleaded guilty to strangling 56-year-old Ilona Straumanis and was sentenced to death by a three-judge panel.

He and Straumanis met at a bar in Reno about three to four days before the killing and they continued drinking in Dennis' motel room. He told authorities he choked her to death while they were having sex.