Viva L. Nash, 94, oldest U.S. death row inmate

PHOENIX - Deaf, nearly blind, confined to a wheelchair, and suffering from dementia and mental illness, the oldest death row inmate in the United States has died of natural causes at age 94. Viva Leroy Nash died late Friday at the state's prison complex in Florence, Ariz.

Mr. Nash had been imprisoned almost continuously since he was 15, said one of his appellate attorneys, Thomas Phalen. In many ways, Nash was a throwback to the Old West, using words like bushwhacked in conversation that had long been lost from everyday use.

"He was born in 1915 and he was sent to prison in 1930," Phalen said. "Think about it - he had 15 years of life in southern Utah, at a time when Utah and Arizona was the wild, wild West - and he went to prison in 1930, and he remained in prison for the next 80 years, more or less."

At the time of Mr. Nash's death, state prosecutors were appealing a federal appeals court ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court that concluded he might not be competent to assist in his defense, Phalen said.

Phalen said his research showed that Mr. Nash grew up in southern Utah and was sent to the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., in 1930 for an armed robbery. He spent 25 years in prison for shooting a Connecticut police officer in 1947. In 1977, he was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for a robbery and murder in Salt Lake City but escaped in 1982.

In 1983, he was caught and convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery and sentenced to death in 1983. The Arizona Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 1985, and Nash then filed a series of unsuccessful appeals in state and federal court.