ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A Michigan man whose case figured in a New Mexico ruling on pretrial detention of murder defendants has been convicted in a 2017 fatal stabbing in Albuquerque.
The state Attorney General’s Office says Muhammad Ameer of Flint faces a mandatory life sentence after being convicted Friday of first-degree murder and armed robbery in the killing of 30-year-old Aaron Sieben near a gas station.
The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in Ameer’s case that judges can’t deny a defendant bail because that person is accused of a crime that would have qualified for capital punishment had the state still allowed death sentences.
The ruling said first-degree murder isn’t currently a constitutionally defined capital offense that would authorize a judge to categorically deny bail. New Mexico abolished the death penalty in 2009.
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