On Feb. 25, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision (McKinney v. Arizona, 589 U.S. ___ (2020)), affirmed a judgment of the Arizona Supreme Court which had upheld a death sentence. More than 20 years earlier, the defendant, James McKinney, had been convicted by a jury of two first-degree murders. Under Arizona law at the time, he was eligible for the death sentence if the trial judge found at least one aggravating circumstance. The judge so found, and thus a death sentence was imposed.

Almost 20 years later, on federal habeas corpus review, an en banc panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, by a vote of 6-5, decided that the Arizona courts had violated the 1982 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 (1982), in which it was held that a capital sentencer could not refuse to consider relevant mitigating evidence. McKinney’s case was remanded to the Arizona Supreme Court where he then argued that he was entitled to be resentenced by a jury. The state urged that the Arizona Supreme Court could itself weigh the aggravating and mitigating circumstances as permitted by Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U.S. 738 (1990). The Arizona Supreme Court agreed with the state and upheld McKinney’s death sentence after reviewing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances.

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