Opinion ID: 3065917
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Enmund/Tison

Text: The majority, as did the Arizona Supreme Court, correctly identified the two controlling Supreme Court cases: Enmund and Tison. In Enmund, the Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional to execute the defendant, who was the getaway driver for an armed robbery of a dwelling, for “two killings that he did not commit and had no intention of committing or causing,” namely, the murders of the victims of the robbery by his accomplices. Enmund, 458 U.S. at 801. The court determined that such a punishment for felonymurder would meet neither the deterrent nor retributive goals of the death penalty. Id. at 798-801. Five years later in Tison, the Supreme Court carved out a narrow exception to Enmund. Tison did not overrule Enmund, but rather clarified it by creating an explicit exception; the Court said that “major participation in the felony committed, combined with reckless indifference to human life, is sufficient to satisfy the Enmund culpability requirement.” Tison, 481 U.S. at 158. More recently, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court described the holdings in Enmund and Tison as follows: [I]n Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982), the Court overturned the capital sentence of a defendant who aided and abetted a robbery during which a murder was committed but did not himself kill, attempt to kill, or intend that a killing would take DICKENS v. RYAN 8635 place. On the other hand, in Tison v. Arizona, 481 U.S. 137 (1987), the Court allowed the defendants’ death sentences to stand where they did not them- selves kill the victims but their involvement in the events leading up to the murders was active, reck- lessly indifferent, and substantial. 554 U.S. 407, 421 (2008) (emphasis added). With this legal framework in mind, I analyze the findings of the Arizona Supreme Court (and the separate findings of the majority) in support of their separate conclusions that Dickens satisfied the two requirements for imposition of the death penalty: (1) that he was a major participant in the robbery of the Bernsteins; and (2) that he acted with reckless indifference to human life.