Supreme Court Agrees to Second Review of Arizona Death Penalty Case on Arizona’s Request

On Wednesday, December 13, the U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari in Thornell v. Jones, its first death penal­ty case to be heard at oral argu­ment in the 2023 term. Unlike most death penal­ty cas­es that seek Supreme Court review, the peti­tion­er here is the state of Arizona, which asks the Court to reverse the Ninth Circuit’s grant of relief for death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Danny Lee Jones (pic­tured). The Ninth Circuit held that Mr. Jones demon­strat­ed inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel at his sen­tenc­ing phase under Strickland v. Washington (1984). So far this term, the Court has denied cer­tio­rari review to 37 pris­on­er-peti­tion­ers and grant­ed review to one, while deny­ing cer­tio­rari review to one oth­er state-peti­tion­er and grant­i­ng it in this case. 

Mr. Jones was con­vict­ed of the 1992 mur­ders of Robert Weaver and his sev­en-year-old daugh­ter Tisha, as well as the attempt­ed mur­der of Mr. Weaver’s grand­moth­er Katherine Gumina. According to court doc­u­ments, Mr. Jones and Mr. Weaver had been drink­ing and using metham­phet­a­mines in Mr. Weaver’s garage when they got into an argu­ment, after which Mr. Jones attacked Mr. Weaver and his fam­i­ly mem­bers. At sen­tenc­ing, Mr. Jones’ attor­ney Lee Novak pre­sent­ed a fam­i­ly wit­ness and a court-appoint­ed psy­chi­a­trist who tes­ti­fied about Mr. Jones’ child­hood health prob­lems, abu­sive bio­log­i­cal father and step­fa­ther, and his­to­ry of drug and alco­hol depen­den­cy. Testimony showed that grow­ing up, Mr. Jones suf­fered head trau­ma to the point of los­ing con­scious­ness on at least sev­en occa­sions, includ­ing two falls from roofs as an ado­les­cent. Mr. Jones also served in the Marines, where he was once hos­pi­tal­ized after a mug­ging that left him uncon­scious on the side of the road. (For more infor­ma­tion on mil­i­tary vet­er­ans on death row, see DPIC’s recent Veterans Day Review.)

However, Mr. Novak did not present evi­dence in his pos­ses­sion that Mr. Jones had received treat­ment for mood dis­or­ders, attempt­ed sui­cide five years before the mur­ders, spent time in a men­tal insti­tu­tion, and suf­fered mul­ti­ple neu­ro­chem­i­cal defi­cien­cies. Mr. Novak did not present any addi­tion­al fam­i­ly wit­ness­es and the court-appoint­ed expert con­duct­ed only a ​“short and cur­so­ry eval­u­a­tion.” The expert rec­om­mend­ed fur­ther neu­ro­log­ic test­ing such as a CAT scan, MRI, and EEG based on ​“very strong evi­dence” of ​“trau­mat­ic brain injury and…organic neu­ro­log­ic dys­func­tions” that could explain Mr. Jones’ behav­ior on the day of the mur­ders, and Mr. Novak request­ed a con­tin­u­ance to con­duct the test­ing. The tri­al court denied the request. 

A dis­trict court denied Mr. Jones relief after an evi­den­tiary hear­ing but was reversed by a unan­i­mous pan­el of Ninth Circuit judges, who held that Mr. Novak was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly inef­fec­tive by fail­ing to secure a defense men­tal health expert or seek neu­ro­log­i­cal test­ing before sen­tenc­ing. The Ninth Circuit denied a request for rehear­ing en banc and recon­sid­er­a­tion by the full court over the dis­sents of ten judges. Arizona now argues that the Ninth Circuit pan­el failed to give def­er­ence to the dis­trict court’s rul­ing against Mr. Jones and improp­er­ly weighed the aggra­vat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors in vio­la­tion of Strickland. Mr. Jones argues that Mr. Novak’s fail­ure to uncov­er and present key evi­dence is undis­put­ed, the Ninth Circuit faith­ful­ly applied the Strickland stan­dard, and Arizona has not shown that any oth­er courts have ruled dif­fer­ent­ly in similar cases. 

This is the sec­ond time that the Supreme Court has con­sid­ered Mr. Jones’ case. In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled against Mr. Jones after a dis­trict court held that he had not shown inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel and the Ninth Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court issued a sum­ma­ry opin­ion vacat­ing the judg­ment and remand­ing for con­sid­er­a­tion of whether Mr. Jones’ claims had been pro­ce­du­ral­ly default­ed. The ear­li­er rul­ing appeared to influ­ence the Ninth Circuit dis­senters here. “[W]e should have tak­en this case en banc so that the Supreme Court, which has already vacat­ed our judg­ment once, does not grant cer­tio­rari a sec­ond time and reverse us,” Judge Mark Bennett wrote on behalf of nine judges in dis­sent from the denial of rehear­ing en banc.

On October 2, the Supreme Court grant­ed review to pris­on­er-peti­tion­er Manuel Ovante Jr., vacat­ed the judg­ment against him, and remand­ed with­out oral argu­ment in light of its deci­sion in Cruz v. Arizona ear­li­er this year. Mr. Ovante is one of sev­er­al dozen Arizona death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers who were uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly barred from inform­ing the jury that a life sen­tence meant life with­out parole, and are now eli­gi­ble for relief.