Opinion ID: 3166086
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: What Eddings v. Oklahoma Requires and What It

Text: Prohibits Eddings’s command is simple. In Eddings, the trial judge stated that “in following the law” he could not “consider the fact of this young man’s violent background” in determining whether to sentence him to death. Eddings, 455 U.S. at 112–13. The Supreme Court held the trial judge’s refusal to consider the evidence was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Id. at 113–15. “Just as the State may not by statute preclude the sentencer from considering any mitigating factor, neither may the sentencer refuse to consider, as a matter of law, any relevant mitigating evidence.” Id. at 113–14. Yet the Court made clear that the sentencer “may determine the weight to be given relevant mitigating evidence. But [it] may not give it no weight by excluding such evidence from [its] consideration.” Id. at 114–15. In later cases, the Supreme Court clarified that the sentencer cannot refuse to consider evidence because that evidence does not bear a causal nexus to the crime. See, e.g., Tennard v. Dretke, 542 U.S. 274, 287 (2004). We have recognized that the sentencer may consider a “causal nexus . . . as a factor in determining the weight or significance of mitigating evidence.” Lopez v. Ryan, 630 F.3d 72 MCKINNEY V. RYAN 1198, 1204 (9th Cir. 2011) (citing Eddings, 455 U.S. at 114–15).22