An Arizona Supreme Court ruling Tuesday holds a state prison inmate's convictions and sentences in a 2008 killing in which a fellow inmate was stabbed 114 times with prison-made shanks.
Thomas Michael Riley was sentenced to death for a murder conviction in the killing with accomplices of inmate Sean Kelly at the Lewis prison complex in Buckeye and to 11 years in prison for assisting a criminal gang.
Court papers say Riley wrote another inmate a letter graphically describing the killing and detailing his quest to become a full member of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang.
According to trial evidence, Kelly was targeted by the gang because he refused to commit an act of violence against another inmate.