Opinion ID: 2025015
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Williams has received an individualized sentencing determination, independent of a co-defendant's ineligibility for a death sentence.

Text: Williams notes that a post-conviction court recently found that co-defendant Rouster, now known as Gamba Rastafari, is mentally retarded, and granted him post-conviction relief from the death sentence pursuant to Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 321, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002). See Rastafari v. State, Lake Superior Court case no. 2CR-133-886-531 (June 16, 2003 order of the post-conviction court). Petition, Exhibit 1. (The State indicates that it has filed a notice of appeal from that judgment.) He also calls our attention to various items in the record that he contends indicate that both the jury and the trial judge thought Rouster was more culpable than Williams. Williams argues that these facts render his death sentence disproportionate, unreliable, and excessive under Article 1, section 16, and Article 7, section 4 of the Indiana Constitution, Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B), and the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution but he cites no authority for this proposition. That Rouster's death sentence has been vacated because Rouster is mentally retarded has no bearing on the lawfulness of the sentence Williams received. Williams is entitled to and has received an individualized sentencing determination. See Williams v. State, 706 N.E.2d at 159 (citing Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 879, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983)); Rouster v. State, 600 N.E.2d at 1350-51. This Williams has received. To the extent this claim involves anything that could be characterized as previously undiscovered evidence, given the weight of all the other evidence in this case and the level of judicial scrutiny applied by the state and federal courts that have repeatedly reviewed this case, Williams has not presented anything that undermines confidence in the conviction or the death sentence. See Ind.Code § 35-50-2-9(k) (2003). To the extent this claim involves the consideration of anything outside the realm of previously undiscovered evidence, Williams has not established a reasonable possibility that he is entitled to post-conviction relief. See P-C. R. 1 § 12(b).