What happened: Judge Jennifer Green, who oversees the Maricopa Superior Court’s criminal division, quietly rolled out a program to promote faster resolution of death penalty cases in Arizona’s most populous county.
According to a statement from the court, two years after the death penalty notice was filed, the court began ordering the prosecution and defense to participate in settlement negotiations. The order is intended to “encourage” settlement negotiations in death penalty cases, which often drag on for years and end with prosecutors only reducing charges.
Court officials said a sitting judge and a retired judge will hear the case.
Why this happens: A June investigation by ProPublica and ABC15 Arizona found that prosecutors in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office frequently pursue the death penalty, but death sentences are almost never finalized.
There were nearly 350 such cases over a 20-year period, and only 13% resulted in a death sentence. Former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley said the findings called into question his office’s decision to pursue the death penalty and called for a review of the capital levy decision after news outlets shared the findings.
“Once you claim death, things change,” Romley told ProPublica and ABC15 at the time. “More resources will be put into that particular case.”
Capital cases can be litigated over multiple county attorneys’ terms and can cost upwards of $1 million per case. In the hundreds of death penalty cases pursued in Maricopa County since 2007, the cost alone of providing adequate defense to defendants has totaled $289 million. The figure does not include prosecution costs, which the county attorney’s office said are not tracked separately.
Romley praised the court for conducting a settlement conference. “The court recognized that this is not the right way to proceed,” he said, adding that the order could speed up other aspects of the case, such as discovery. Victims could also benefit from faster resolutions, he said. “If I were county attorney, I would accept that,” he said.
Arizona resumed executions in 2025 after a two-year hiatus. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs ordered a review of the state’s lethal injection process in 2022, but she said the state determined that lethal injection was not humane and fired the former federal judge appointed to conduct the analysis.
There are 107 people on death row in Arizona.
What the people are saying: Maricopa County Public Defender Director Rosemary Peña Lynch said in a statement that public defenders are working on a process that “protects our clients’ constitutional rights while providing an opportunity to consider potential case resolutions.”
“I’m in favor of anything that speeds up this process,” Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell (R) said at a press conference in November. However, prosecutors added that they would seek the death penalty “if we believe it is justified.”
Asked about holding a settlement conference two years after a case like this occurred, she said, “Normally you’re not in a situation where the death penalty is dropped on the whim of a plea deal. Maybe the evidence changes, or a witness dies, for example. I don’t know if it will help, but it would be great if it happened.”
What’s next: Last month, Greene issued an order to schedule a settlement hearing in the death penalty case within two years. Green’s order, in the case against two men accused of killing a Tempe woman, cites rules of criminal procedure that require death penalty cases to be resolved within 24 months of the state’s notification of a death penalty request.
On December 3, Mitchell announced that his office would seek the death penalty.
Cudjoe Young and Sensere Hayes were charged with the April 17, 2023, murder of 22-year-old Mercedes Vega. Mr. Young and Mr. Hayes have pleaded not guilty.
Vega was still alive when he was left inside the burning Chevrolet Malibu, but died from blunt force trauma after being shot in the arm, according to the autopsy report. The coroner also found bleach in her throat, according to ABC15.
“We continue to seek justice for Mercedes Vega and her family,” Mitchell said in a statement.
