Rick Unklesbay

Professionalism is a word that members of Arizona’s legal community use to describe the late prosecutor Mike Cudahy, a determined leader entrusted to do one of society’s most serious tasks — seeking punishment for those who break the law.
This year’s Michael C. Cudahy Criminal Justice Award will be presented by the State Bar of Arizona to Rick Unklesbay, the chief trial counsel with the Pima County Attorney’s Office.
The 25-year veteran attorney has sought convictions for all sorts of felonies, including narcotics and property crimes, but for the past 12 years work for this husband and father of two has solely focused on murder cases.
Mr. Unklesbay has conducted about 100 homicide trials, including a dozen capital cases. Many have been high profile, such as the case against John Montenegro Cruz, who was found guilty of killing Tucson police officer Patrick Hardesty, and another against two men responsible for killing three employees of a Tucson Pizza Hut.
Mr. Unklesbay is also credited with breaking ground in the presentation of aggravating factors in murder trials, in particular to juries, as required by the 2002 Supreme Court case Ring v. Arizona. The decision forced states, Arizona included, to re-sentence some of those waiting on death row.
One current case Mr. Unklesbay is re-sentencing involves Scott Nordstrom, a Tucson man convicted for his role in the killing of six people during several robberies in 1996.
While the attention of outsiders might focus on the grave intensity of his work, fellow prosecutors are drawn to his attributes like his leadership abilities, legal talent, tenacity, sense of fairness and high ethical standards.
Doesn’t take the role of death penalty advocate
Mr. Unklesbay does not take an advocate role in the heated death penalty debate, but instead views it as a state-sanctioned part of his job. He restrains himself from attempting to influence his daughters on the topic.
“I don’t want to tell them my opinions and make them their opinions,” he says.
That is not to say he shies away from critics of the death penalty. In a demonstration of transparency, he appears frequently before legal organizations, most notably, the American Civil Liberties Union, to discuss the issue at length.
He also teaches and lectures for the National College of District Attorneys, Pima County Attorney’s Office Citizen’s Academy, Tucson Police Department Citizen’s Academy and law students at the University of Arizona and Pima Community College.
“Life would be easier” without the ultimate punishment, he says. There would not be the heated comments from defense attorneys he considers friends, or the 1,500 letters of protest from worldwide members of Amnesty International, or the emotional interactions with family members of the victims of violent crimes.
He also fears the possibility of being misinterpreted as a “madman,” but he admits to wanting personal responsibility over cases of extreme cruelty in order to take violent criminals “off the street.”
The 2005 winner of the Association of Government Attorneys in Capital Litigation Award for outstanding advocacy in capital cases, Mr. Unklesbay explains that about 5 percent of homicide cases warrant the punishment.
“We try to reserve it for the worst of the worst,” he says. “We follow the law. If there wasn’t capital punishment we would carry on without a second thought.”