Convicted killer Jorge Martin Benvenuto will not be allowed to withdraw his guilty pleas.
The Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Benvenuto's claims that the state violated his rights under the Vienna Convention, when police did not tell him of his right to contact the Uruguayan consulate. Benvenuto also claimed his own lawyers failed to tell him of his international rights.
However, the high court ruled it would not have changed the outcome.
"He fails to show that, absent those alleged deficiencies, he would not have pleaded guilty, but would have risked the death penalty and gone to trial ...," Utah Supreme Court Justice Matthew Durrant wrote.
In 1996, Benvenuto shot and killed Zachary Snarr, 18, as he took photos of a full moon over Little Dell Reservoir. Snarr was accompanied by his friend, Yvette Rodier.
She was shot several times, including once in the head. Rodier played dead and testified that she could feel Benvenuto's breath on her as he searched Snarr's body for money and car keys. Prosecutors said Benvenuto killed Snarr and wanted to kill Rodier just so he could know what it felt like to kill someone.
Benvenuto pleaded guilty in 1997 to aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, avoiding the death penalty.
The convicted killer has tried more than once to change his guilty plea. In one instance, he claimed that he was depressed at the time he made the plea.
In this latest claim, Benvenuto — now 29 — alleged that no one told him of his right to contact the Uruguayan consulate. But the Supreme Court said Benvenuto didn't tell anyone he was not a U.S. citizen, and held himself out as an American.
"He really had to prove that if he'd known he could contact the Uruguayan consulate, he would not have pleaded guilty and would have gone to trial where he would have faced a death sentence," assistant Utah Attorney General Thomas Brunker said Tuesday.
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