![Judge Tosses Death Sentence in Slaying of Dru Sjodin](http://townsquare.media/site/67/files/2021/09/attachment-GettyImages-2782980.jpg?w=980&q=75)
Judge Tosses Death Sentence in Slaying of Dru Sjodin
FARGO, N.D. (AP) -- A federal judge has thrown out the death sentence for a man convicted in the 2003 slaying of a North Dakota college student.
Judge Ralph Erickson ruled Friday that misleading testimony from a medical examiner and limitations on mental health evidence violated Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.'s constitutional rights.
Suspect In Student's Disappearance in Court
He ordered a new sentencing phase be conducted. Rodriguez has been on death row for nearly two decades.
He was convicted of killing Dru Sjodin, a Minnesota woman who was abducted from a Grand Forks mall parking lot in November 2003.
Rodriguez, a sex offender, was arrested the following month. Sjodin's body wasn't found until the following April near Crookston, Minnesota.
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