High court won't hear Rodriguez appeal in Sjodin case

The U.S. Supreme Court says it will not hear an appeal by a man sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing a University of North Dakota student in 2003.

The U.S. attorney's office in Fargo says the court announced on Monday it had denied the petition for Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., who's currently on death row at a federal prison.

A legal team already has been named to handle a final appeal historically referred to as habeas corpus.

Twenty-two-year-old Dru Sjodin was abducted from the parking lot of a Grand Forks shopping mall in November 2003. Her body was found five months later near Crookston, Minn.

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