The U.S. Supreme Court has grant­ed review of an Arizona death-penal­ty case in which the state courts first refused to con­sid­er a defendant’s mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence and then denied his request for a jury sen­tenc­ing hear­ing after his death sen­tence was over­turned. The Court on June 10, 2019 grant­ed the peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari filed by Arizona death-row pris­on­er James Erin McKinney (pic­tured) 26 years after he was first sen­tenced to death.

In 1993, McKinney was con­vict­ed for two mur­ders com­mit­ted dur­ing the course of bur­glar­ies. At that time, Arizona law pro­vid­ed for a jury tri­al on guilt or inno­cence and a sep­a­rate penal­ty-phase tri­al in front of a judge. In his penal­ty-phase hear­ing, McKinney pre­sent­ed mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of a ter­ri­fy­ing child­hood replete with insta­bil­i­ty, abuse, and neglect. The evi­dence from his ear­ly child­hood showed that his moth­er was repeat­ed­ly forced to flee from his alco­holic father. McKinney and his sib­lings lived in ​“squalor” in a house lit­tered with dirty dia­pers, shar­ing a room with live­stock and going to school in ​“dirty clothes that reeked of urine from being on the bed­room floor with the ani­mals.” McKinney ​“suf­fered reg­u­lar and exten­sive phys­i­cal, ver­bal, and emo­tion­al abuse.” His step­moth­er reg­u­lar­ly beat him and his sib­lings, leav­ing marks and bruis­es. Often, they were locked out of the house for hours with­out food and water. According to tes­ti­mo­ny from a psy­chol­o­gist, McKinney was diag­nosed with PTSD ​“result­ing from this hor­rif­ic child­hood.” The tri­al judge found that McKinney’s child­hood was ​“beyond the com­pre­hen­sion of most peo­ple,” but refused to con­sid­er any of that evi­dence as a result of Arizona Supreme Court caselaw requir­ing mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence to be have a direct causal con­nec­tion to the crime. Without that evi­dence, the tri­al judge sen­tenced McKinney to death.

In June 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the state’s judi­cial sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, rul­ing in Ring v. Arizona that cap­i­tal defen­dants had a right to a jury deter­mi­na­tion of all facts upon which a death-sen­tence could be imposed. However, the Court lat­er ruled in Schriro v. Summerlin that it would enforce Ring only in cas­es that had not yet com­plet­ed direct review at the time Ring was decid­ed. The Arizona state courts upheld McKinney’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed his sen­tence, hold­ing that Arizona’s require­ment that mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence be ​“causal­ly con­nect­ed” to the crime vio­lat­ed the U.S. Supreme Court’s long estab­lished 1982 deci­sion in Eddings v. Oklahoma. The appeals court rul­ing also affect­ed every oth­er Arizona death-penal­ty case in the 15-year time peri­od in which the state courts uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly lim­it­ed mitigating evidence.

The Ninth Circuit returned the case to the Arizona courts for resen­tenc­ing, but rather than giv­ing McKinney a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, Pima County pros­e­cu­tors asked the Arizona Supreme Court to con­duct its own inde­pen­dent review of his sen­tence. McKinney argued that resen­tenc­ing by the court would vio­late his right under Ring to have a jury decide the aggra­vat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence in his case. The Arizona Supreme Court sided with the pros­e­cu­tors and inde­pen­dent­ly reweighed the aggra­vat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. Affording lit­tle weight to McKinney’s PTSD, the court resen­tenced him to death. McKinney’s Supreme Court peti­tion argued that Arizona’s refusal to pro­vide him a jury sen­tenc­ing vio­lat­ed his rights under Ring and Eddings and devi­at­ed from the approach of oth­er state and fed­er­al courts that had uni­form­ly required jury resen­tenc­ing in similar circumstances.

Ben Cohen of the Promise of Justice Initiative, which filed an ami­cus brief in sup­port of McKinney, called the deci­sion to hear the case ​“a pos­i­tive sign that the court is not going to throw up its hands and ignore uncon­sti­tu­tion­al death sen­tences.” John Mills of Phillips Black, a non-prof­it law prac­tice that also sub­mit­ted an ami­cus brief, said McKinney’s case ​“presents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reaf­firm the impor­tance of juries in weigh­ing the evi­dence about whether an inmate should live or die.” The Court’s res­o­lu­tion of the issue could affect resen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures in more than twen­ty other cases.

(Jordan S. Rubin, Divided on Death Penalty, Justices to Hear Capital Case, Bloomberg Law, June 10, 2019; Erika Williams, High Court to Clarify Appeals Standard in Death-Penalty Cases, Courthouse News, June 10, 2019; Jose Moreno, U.S. Supreme Court to hear Chandler death penal­ty case, Arizona Republic, June 10, 2019.) See U.S. Supreme Court.

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