Opinion ID: 3066031
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Causal Nexus Test

Text: Poyson argues that the Arizona courts applied an unconstitutional causal nexus test to mitigating evidence of his mental health issues, traumatic childhood and substance abuse history, in violation of his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to an individualized sentencing. He contends that the state courts improperly refused to consider this evidence in mitigation because he failed to establish a causal connection between the evidence and the murders. He POYSON V . RYAN 21 argues that the state courts’ actions violate his constitutional rights as recognized in Tennard v. Dretke, 542 U.S. 274, 283–87 (2004), Smith v. Texas, 543 U.S. 37, 45 (2004) (per curiam), and several earlier decisions. These decisions hold that requiring a defendant to prove a nexus between mitigating evidence and the crime is “a test we never countenanced and now have unequivocally rejected.” Smith, 543 U.S. at 45. Because Poyson filed his federal habeas petition after April 24, 1996, he must not only prove a violation of these rights but also satisfy the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). See Fenenbock v. Dir. of Corr. for Cal., 681 F.3d 968, 973 (9th Cir. 2012). Under AEDPA, we may not grant habeas relief with respect to any claim adjudicated on the merits in state court unless the state court’s decision was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” or “based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). We review the last reasoned state court decision addressing the claim, which for Poyson’s causal nexus claim is the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision affirming Poyson’s death sentence on direct appeal. See Crittenden v. Ayers, 624 F.3d 943, 950 (9th Cir. 2010). Poyson relies on AEDPA’s “contrary to” prong, arguing that the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Poyson, 7 P.3d 79 (Ariz. 2000), was contrary to Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978), Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 (1982), and Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989), abrogated on other grounds by Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). 22 POYSON V . RYAN
As a threshold matter, we agree with Poyson that he has fully exhausted this claim. The state argues that in state court Poyson raised a causal nexus claim with respect to only mental health issues and his troubled childhood, not his history of substance abuse. We disagree. Having reviewed the record, we conclude that Poyson exhausted the claim with respect to all three categories of mitigating evidence. See Powell v. Lambert, 357 F.3d 871, 874 (9th Cir. 2004) (“A petitioner has exhausted his federal claims when he has fully and fairly presented them to the state courts.”). 2. Whether the Arizona Supreme Court’s Decision Was Contrary to Clearly Established Federal Law Lockett, Eddings and Penry held that “a State could not, consistent with the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, prevent the sentencer from considering and giving effect to evidence relevant to the defendant’s background or character or to the circumstances of the offense that mitigate against imposing the death penalty.” Penry, 492 U.S. at 318. “[I]t is not enough simply to allow the defendant to present mitigating evidence to the sentencer.” Id. at 319. “The sentencer must also be able to consider and give effect to that evidence in imposing sentence.” Id. “[T]he sentence imposed at the penalty stage should reflect a reasoned moral response to the defendant’s background, character, and crime.” Id. (quoting California v. Brown, 479 U.S. 538, 545 (1987) (O’Connor, J., concurring)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under these decisions, a state court may not treat mitigating evidence of a defendant’s background or character POYSON V . RYAN 23 as “irrelevant or nonmitigating as a matter of law” merely because it lacks a causal connection to the crime. Towery v. Ryan, 673 F.3d 933, 946 (9th Cir. 2012) (per curiam). The sentencer may, however, consider “causal nexus . . . as a factor in determining the weight or significance of mitigating evidence.” Lopez v. Ryan, 630 F.3d 1198, 1204 (9th Cir. 2011). “The . . . use of the nexus test in this manner is not unconstitutional because state courts are free to assess the weight to be given to particular mitigating evidence.” Schad v. Ryan, 671 F.3d 708, 723 (9th Cir. 2011) (per curiam). As the Court explained in Eddings: 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. . . . The sentencer, and the Court of Criminal Appeals on review, may determine the weight to be given relevant mitigating evidence. But they may not give it no weight by excluding such evidence from their consideration. Eddings, 455 U.S. at 113–15. Consistent with these principles, we have granted habeas relief when state courts have applied a causal nexus test as a screening mechanism to deem evidence irrelevant or nonmitigating as a matter of law. In Styers v. Schriro, 547 F.3d 1026 (9th Cir. 2008) (per curiam), we granted relief where the state court held that a defendant’s post-traumatic stress disorder could not constitute mitigation unless the defendant could connect the condition to the crime. See id. at 1035. In Williams v. Ryan, 623 F.3d 1258 (9th Cir. 2010), 24 POYSON V . RYAN we granted relief where the state court held that, “[w]ithout a showing of some impairment at the time of the offense, drug use cannot be a mitigating circumstance of any kind.” Id. at 1270–71 (alteration in original) (quoting State v. Williams, 904 P.2d 437, 453 (Ariz. 1995)) (internal quotation marks omitted). In contrast, we have refused to find a constitutional violation when the state court employed a causal nexus test as a permissible weighing mechanism. See Towery, 673 F.3d at 945–46. We have also denied relief when the record contains no indication that the state court employed a causal nexus test at all. See Schad, 671 F.3d at 724 (denying relief where “there is no indication that the state courts applied a nexus test, either as a method of assessing the weight of the mitigating evidence, or as an unconstitutional screening mechanism to prevent consideration of any evidence”); Lopez, 630 F.3d at 1203–04 (denying relief where the state courts made no mention of a causal nexus test, because “there is no reason to infer unconstitutional reasoning from judicial silence”). Here, the record shows that the Arizona Supreme Court applied a causal nexus test to Poyson’s evidence of mental health issues and a difficult childhood, see Poyson, 7 P.3d at 90–91, but does not reveal whether the court considered the absence of a causal nexus as a permissible weighing mechanism, as in Towery, or as an unconstitutional screening mechanism, as in Styers and Williams. This ambiguity precludes us from granting habeas relief. We held in Schad that, “[a]bsent a clear indication in the record that the state court applied the wrong standard, we cannot assume the courts violated Eddings’s constitutional mandates.” 671 F.3d at 724. That principle governs here: we cannot assume the POYSON V . RYAN 25 state court applied the wrong standard. The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision therefore was not contrary to clearly established federal law under § 2254(d)(1). We reach the same conclusion with respect to the Arizona Supreme Court’s evaluation of Poyson’s evidence of a history of substance abuse. The state court rejected this evidence at step one in its analysis, finding as a matter of fact that Poyson had failed to establish a significant history of substance abuse by a preponderance of the evidence. The record does not indicate that the court considered this evidence at step two, or that, if it did so, it employed an impermissible causal nexus test in doing so. See Poyson, 7 P.3d at 90. The court’s treatment of Poyson’s substance abuse evidence thus was likewise not contrary to Lockett, Eddings and Penry. We recognize the possibility that the Arizona Supreme Court applied an unconstitutional causal nexus test. The record, however, contains no clear indication that the court did so. We may not presume a constitutional violation from an ambiguous record. We therefore hold that the district court properly denied habeas relief on Poyson’s causal nexus claim. See Schad, 671 F.3d at 724. The dissent contends that Schad’s presumption that state courts follow constitutional requirements should not apply here for three reasons. First, citing the Arizona Supreme Court’s historical use of an unconstitutional causal nexus test at the time of Poyson’s sentencing, the dissent argues that we should presume error. Dissent 37–38. This argument would be persuasive if the Arizona courts consistently applied an unconstitutional causal nexus test during the relevant period. That is not the case, however. As we recognized in Lopez, 26 POYSON V . RYAN Our review of the case law confirms Arizona’s unsettled past with respect to this issue. Some cases decided prior to Tennard applied a causal nexus requirement in an impermissible manner. Other cases, however, properly looked to causal nexus only as a factor in determining the weight or significance of mitigating evidence. 630 F.3d at 1203–04 (footnote omitted); see also Towery, 673 F.3d at 946 (also recognizing that the Arizona Supreme Court’s decisions have been inconsistent on this question). Under these circumstances, the most we can say is that Arizona’s troublesome history weakens the presumption that the Arizona Supreme Court followed the law in Poyson’s case; it does not flip the presumption altogether. Second, the dissent argues that the presumption that state courts follow constitutional mandates applies only to a silent record and not to the interpretation of a state court’s language. Dissent 41–42. This argument overlooks the Supreme Court’s decision in Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19 (2002). There, the state court applied an arguably erroneous test for determining prejudice under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 468 (1984). Some language in the state court’s decision cited the test correctly, whereas other language misstated the test. See Visciotti, 537 U.S. at 22–24. We held that the state court had applied an erroneous test, but the Supreme Court reversed, holding that our “readiness to attribute error is inconsistent with the presumption that state courts know and follow the law.” Id. at 24. After Visciotti, therefore, we must consider the presumption that state courts follow the law not only when we draw inferences from the POYSON V . RYAN 27 court’s silence but also when, as here, we construe a state court’s ambiguous language. Third, quoting Justice O’Connor’s concurrence in Eddings, the dissent argues that “the qualitatively different nature of a death sentence requires reviewing courts ‘to remove any legitimate basis for finding ambiguity concerning the factors actually considered by the trial court.’” Dissent 42 (quoting Eddings, 455 U.S. at 119 (O’Connor, J., concurring)). A majority of the Court, however, has never adopted Justice O’Connor’s suggestion that ambiguity alone requires habeas relief. Unlike Eddings, moreover, this case is governed by AEDPA, and AEDPA does not allow us to presume from an ambiguous record that the state court applied an unconstitutional standard. To the contrary, such a “readiness to attribute error” would be flatly “incompatible with § 2254(d)’s highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings, which demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt.” Visciotti, 537 U.S. at 24 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); cf. Lopez v. Schriro, 491 F.3d 1029, 1037 (9th Cir. 2007) (holding that alleged ambiguity in the state court’s language was insufficient “to overcome the presumption that the state court knew and followed the law”). At bottom, the ambiguous record in this case is no different from those in Schad and Lopez, two cases in which we declined to grant habeas relief. In both of those cases, we denied relief notwithstanding Arizona’s troublesome history of applying an unconstitutional causal nexus test – and notwithstanding the existence of an ambiguous record. Here too, in the absence of a clear indication in the record that the state court applied an unconstitutional standard, we see no alternative but to affirm. 28 POYSON V . RYAN