A 50-year-old man who spent more than a decade on California's death row was found unresponsive in his cell at California State Prison, Sacramento, on Thursday morning and later pronounced dead. Prison staff tried to revive him before paramedics confirmed his death. Officials say the case is now under investigation.
According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Armando Macias was discovered unresponsive just after 7 a.m., and paramedics pronounced him dead at 8:01 a.m. after prison personnel performed life-saving measures, CBS Sacramento reports. CDCR said the prison's Investigative Services Unit has opened an inquiry, and the Sacramento County Coroner's Office will determine the official cause of death.
Convicted in a 2002 murder-for-hire
Macias had been on death row since 2011 after his conviction for the 2002 murder-for-hire killing of 44-year-old David Montemayor, according to The Sacramento Bee. Appellate and trial records outline allegations that Montemayor's sister, Deborah Perna, arranged the killing and that multiple co-defendants took part in the plot, as summarized in state court opinions available via Justia.
Jurors convicted Macias in April 2011 and recommended the death penalty the following month, according to contemporaneous reporting of the trial. OC Weekly chronicled the lengthy prosecutions and the roles of multiple defendants in the case.
Where this fits in California's death-row landscape
The death comes amid a period of change for California's condemned population, with transfers, resentencings and other shifts shrinking the state's death-row roster in recent years. The Death Penalty Information Center has tracked those trends and documented multiple resentencings and transfers in recent years, and its reporting provides a broader look at how the state's death-row population has changed. Death Penalty Information Center
CDCR said its Investigative Services Unit is handling the matter and that the Sacramento County Coroner will determine the official cause of death, per CBS Sacramento. Officials have not released additional details as the probe continues.
Any criminal or administrative follow-up will depend on the coroner's findings and CDCR's investigation. Agencies said they will release more information when it becomes available.
