Opinion ID: 867356
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Difficult family history

Text: ¶ 36 A difficult family history is considered in mitigation, but its strength depends on whether the defendant can show it has a causal connection with the crime. State v. Pandeli ( Pandeli II ), 215 Ariz. 514, 532 ¶ 72, 161 P.3d 557, 575 (2007). Furthermore, a difficult childhood is given less weight when the defendant is older. State v. Hampton, 213 Ariz. 167, 185 ¶ 89, 140 P.3d 950, 968 (2006), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 972, 166 L.Ed.2d 738 (2007) (defendant was thirty at the time of the crime). McCray presented evidence that he was born to alcoholic parents; that as an infant he was briefly placed in a foster home after being abandoned by his mother; that he was emotionally mistreated by his father and step-mother; and that he sometimes had troubled relations with his step-mother and her daughters. After his father divorced his step-mother, she raised him, paid his tuition for cosmetology school, and otherwise helped support him financially. McCray was twenty-eight years old when he murdered Cummins. ¶ 37 Here, although McCray proved he had a less-than-ideal childhood, he presented no evidence causally relating his childhood to his attack on Cummins. McCray urges this Court to reevaluate its rule that, especially when the defendant is older, a difficult childhood is given less mitigating weight than if the defendant can show a causal connection between the childhood and the crime. We decline to do so, but we reaffirm that we do consider evidence of a difficult childhood in mitigation even if no causal connection has been shown. See State v. Newell, 212 Ariz. 389, 406 ¶¶ 86-87, 132 P.3d 833, 850 (2006), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 663, 166 L.Ed.2d 521 (2006). In this case, we accord the factor little mitigating weight.