John Henry Knapp, Arizona State Prison Inmate No. 33659, and All Inmates of the Arizona State Prison Similarly Situated v. Harold Cardwell

SNEED, Circuit Judge:

Appellants are a class of Arizona prisoners sentenced to death. They attack their death sentences on the ground that the Arizona law under which they were sentenced, as interpreted by the Arizona Supreme Court, is unconstitutional. They further claim that even if it is constitutional, its application to them violates the ex post facto and double jeopardy clauses of the Constitution, and that their constitutional rights to speedy sentences were violated. The district court rejected these contentions and upheld the death sentences. We affirm.

I

FACTS AND BACKGROUND

In 1973 the…