A judge in Southern California has ruled that Joseph Edward Duncan III can be tried in California for the 1997 murder of a 10-year-old boy even though the case was used in a federal trial in Idaho.

Judge David B. Downing rejected the defense claim that trying Duncan in California would duplicate the Idaho federal jury's ruling during a penalty phase that Duncan was responsible for Anthony Martinez's death, despite not convicting Duncan of that murder charge, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports. Duncan was not charged in Idaho with the killing of Anthony.

Duncan, 45, faces the death penalty if convicted on Riverside County charges that he kidnapped, tortured and murdered Anthony Martinez of Beaumont in 1997. Anthony was abducted by a stranger while playing in an alley with his brother. The boy's body was found 15 days later south of Joshua Tree National Park, bound with duct tape and partially covered in rocks in a ravine.

Last year, Duncan was sentenced to three death sentences and six life terms after he was convicted of attacking a family in Idaho, killing the two adults and a teenager before abducting two younger children, a boy and a girl. He later killed the boy, 9-year-old Dylan Groene of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Duncan was arrested in 2005 when he was found with the boy's sister.

Duncan reportedly confessed to the murder of Carmen Cubias, 9, and her half sister Sammiejo White, 11, who were abducted from Seattle in July 1996. The girls' remains were found in an empty field in Bothell in February 1998. He has not been charged in that case.