Opinion ID: 4525104
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Double weighing A.D.’s age

Text: ¶44 Allen argues that the “especially heinous or depraved” jury instruction given during the aggravation phase permitted the jury to illegally double weigh the victim’s age during the penalty phase. Because Allen did not argue this to the trial court, we review only for fundamental error. See Henderson, 210 Ariz. at 567 ¶ 19. 15 STATE V. ALLEN Opinion of the Court ¶45 Allen builds on his aggravation-phase argument. See supra ¶¶ 32–34. He asserts that because the heinous or depraved instruction necessarily required jurors to consider A.D.’s age in determining she was a child but told them they could not do so, “the jury was under the mistaken belief that they had not considered the victim’s age when finding that the victim was a child.” Consequently, Allen contends, the jury was misled to believe it could weigh both the heinous-or-depraved ((F)(6)) and the ageof-victim ((F)(9)) aggravators in deciding whether to impose the death penalty. ¶46 Although the jury could consider A.D.’s age in finding more than one aggravator, it could not do so in the penalty phase when deciding whether to sentence Allen to death. See Velazquez, 216 Ariz. at 307 ¶ 22 (“A jury . . . may use one fact to find multiple aggravators, so long as the fact is not weighed twice when the jury assesses aggravation and mitigation.”); see also Styers, 177 Ariz. at 116 (stating age cannot be weighed twice at the penalty phase consideration of aggravating and mitigating factors). The trial court instructed the jury to that effect during the penalty phase: If you have found that two or more of the aggravating circumstances were proved beyond a reasonable doubt by a single fact or aspect of the offense, you are to consider that fact or aspect of the offense only once. In other words, you shall not consider twice any fact or aspect of the offense. ¶47 We disagree with Allen that the heinous-or-depraved jury instruction given in the aggravation phase misled the jury to believe it had not considered A.D.’s age when finding the existence of that aggravator. As previously explained, the heinous-or-depraved jury instruction did not instruct jurors to disregard A.D.’s age in deciding whether she was a child but instead instructed them to ignore her age when assessing helplessness. See supra ¶ 34. A reasonable jury following the aggravation-phase instruction would knowingly consider A.D.’s age when determining whether she was a child. It would also know it had considered her age in finding both the heinous-or-depraved aggravator and the age-of-victim aggravator. Because nothing indicates the jury disregarded the court’s penalty-phase instruction and double weighed A.D.’s age, we do not find error. 16 STATE V. ALLEN Opinion of the Court