Opinion ID: 4465387
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Our Reasoning

Text: There were three steps in our reasoning:
First, we compared the aggravators and mitigators at the two different stages in state court: 10 KAYER V. RYAN
In the trial court and in the Arizona Supreme Court on direct de novo review, there were two statutory aggravators and one non-statutory mitigator. No mitigating factor—either statutory or non-statutory—was found based on mental impairment. Given the meager evidence presented at sentencing, we held that the Arizona Supreme Court had “made a reasonable determination of the facts in concluding that Kayer suffered from no mental impairment.” Kayer, 923 F.3d at 702. The first statutory aggravator was a prior conviction for a “serious offense.” ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 13-703(F)(2). Kayer’s prior conviction was for first degree burglary. This conviction is the least serious of the “serious offenses” under the aggravator. Serious offenses range from burglary to first degree murder, second degree murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault resulting in serious physical injury, sexual assault, and any dangerous crime against children. See ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 13-703(H)(1)–(6). The second statutory aggravator was commission of a crime for “pecuniary gain.” See ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 13-703(F)(5). The gain in Kayer’s case was relatively modest: avoiding repayment of a $100 loan from Haas, and stealing money and jewelry from Haas’s person and personal property from his house. Neither the sentencing judge nor the Arizona Supreme Court found the proposed statutory aggravator of killing in “an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner.” ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 13703(F)(6). The one non-statutory mitigator was Kayer’s importance in the life of his son. KAYER V. RYAN 11
Based on the extensive evidence presented during the state PCR proceeding, we concluded that Kayer had established the statutory mitigator of mental impairment under Arizona law: “The defendant’s capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was significantly impaired, but not so impaired as to constitute a defense to prosecution.” ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 13-703(G)(1). In order to reach that conclusion, we analyzed Arizona Supreme Court cases in which that statutory mitigator had been found. Kayer, 923 F.3d at 718 (providing as examples State v. Stevens, 158 Ariz. 595, 764 P.2d 724, 727–29 (1988) (long-term alcohol and drug use); State v. Gretzler, 135 Ariz. 42, 659 P.2d 1, 16–17 (1983) (long-term drug use)). The state PCR judge made no finding, one way or the other, whether Kayer had established the statutory mitigator of mental impairment. If he had made a finding that Kayer had not established this statutory mitigator, the finding would have been objectively unreasonable, given the clear case law of the Arizona Supreme Court. The Strickland prejudice question in the PCR court was the effect of the addition of the new statutory mitigator of “mental impairment” to the relatively weak non-statutory mitigator of “importance in the life of his son,” balanced against the same two statutory aggravators.
Second, we recited the established law for determining prejudice in a Strickland IAC case under AEDPA. Under that law, we do not look to what the initial sentencing judge 12 KAYER V. RYAN would have done if the later-presented evidence had been presented at the sentencing hearing. Instead, we look to the probability of a different outcome in the Arizona Supreme Court, which sentences de novo in capital cases. We filter the Strickland standard through the lens of AEDPA to give appropriate deference to the decision of the state PCR judge. Kayer, 923 F.3d at 719–20. The prejudice standard under Strickland is not whether the newly introduced evidence would “more likely than not have produced a different outcome.” Rather, the Strickland prejudice standard is the less demanding standard of “reasonable probability”: The defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694 (1984). When filtered through the lens of AEDPA, the standard is that articulated by the Supreme Court in Porter v. McCollum. The Strickland prejudice question for a federal habeas court under AEDPA is whether it was objectively unreasonable [for the state habeas court] to conclude there was no reasonable probability the sentence would have been different if the sentencing judge . . . had heard the significant mitigation evidence KAYER V. RYAN 13 that [defendant’s trial] counsel neither uncovered nor presented. Porter v. McCollum, 558 U.S. 30, 31 (2009) (per curiam).
Third, we compared the facts of Kayer’s case to the facts of other Arizona capital cases to determine prejudice. We discussed several Arizona Supreme Court cases and concluded that one case in particular predicted what that court would likely have done if the information presented during Kayer’s state PCR proceeding had been presented at the original sentencing hearing. Id. at 721–23. In State v. Brookover, 124 Ariz. 38, 601 P.2d 1322 (1979), defendant Brookover had agreed to buy 750 pounds of marijuana from the victim. When the marijuana was delivered, Brookover shot the victim in order to avoid paying for it. “The victim fell to the floor moaning and asked the defendant what he had done. The defendant said ‘Don’t worry . . . it will be over soon’ and shot him once more in the back,” killing him. Id. at 1323. There were essentially the same two statutory aggravators in Brookover’s case as in Kayer’s case: (1) conviction for a prior “serious offense,” though this aggravator, at the time of Brookover’s sentencing, required the crime be one for which the death penalty could be imposed; and (2) killing for pecuniary gain (recognized a year later, retroactively, as a statutory aggravator). As in Kayer’s case, the Brookover court rejected a statutory aggravator of killing in “an especially heinous, cruel, or depraved manner.” There was also the same mitigating factor that in Kayer’s case had been established only after he obtained competent counsel during the state court PCR 14 KAYER V. RYAN proceedings: “mental impairment.” Unlike in Kayer’s case, there was no additional mitigator in Brookover’s case. In its de novo sentencing determination in Brookover, the Arizona Supreme Court held that a death sentence could not be imposed. It held, “Under the circumstances, leniency is mandated.” Id. at 1326 (emphasis added). The comparison between Kayer’s case and Brookover is striking. To summarize: Both shot their victims twice, wounding them with the first shot and, after time for deliberation, killing them with the second shot. Both men shot and killed their victims for “pecuniary gain.” In neither case was the pecuniary gain great. Both men had prior convictions for “serious crimes,” though Kayer’s was a much less serious crime than Brookover’s. Both men had the statutory mitigator of “mental impairment.” Kayer had an additional mitigator, the non-statutory mitigator of importance in the life of his son. Our dissenting colleagues call Kayer’s crime a “brutal and venal murder.” Dissent at 43. But it was no worse than the murder in Brookover. Indeed, the courts in both Kayer’s case and in Brookover specifically rejected the proposed statutory aggravator that the murder had been committed in “an especially, heinous, cruel or depraved manner.” Given the striking similarity between the facts of Brookover and the facts of Kayer’s case, and given that the Arizona Supreme Court had held in Brookover that a noncapital sentence was “mandated,” we held that the state court judge was “objectively unreasonable” in holding that there was “no reasonable probability” that Kayer’s sentence would have been different if the evidence presented to the PCR court had been presented in the original sentencing hearing. We wrote: KAYER V. RYAN 15 In determining prejudice, we need not go so far as Brookover. We need not decide that leniency was “mandated” and that the state PCR court was unreasonable in concluding otherwise. We need only decide whether “it was objectively unreasonable” for the state court to conclude that there was “no reasonable probability” that Kayer’s sentence would have been different if Kayer’s attorneys had presented to the sentencing court the mitigating evidence later presented to the PCR court. Porter [v. McCollum], 558 U.S. at 31 . . . . In light of the foregoing, and particularly in light of the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision in Brookover, we hold that there is a reasonable probability Kayer’s sentence would have been less than death, and that the state PCR court was unreasonable in concluding otherwise. Kayer, 923 F.3d at 723.