Opinion ID: 222088
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: State Courts' Consideration of Mitigating Factors

Text: Greenway's final claim is that the state trial court and Arizona Supreme Court failed to consider mitigating factors because they were following the then commonly applied test in Arizona requiring a nexus between mitigating factors and the crime. See Schad v. Ryan, 606 F.3d 1022, 1045-46 (9th Cir.2010), vacated on other grounds, ___ U.S. ____, 131 S.Ct. 2092, 179 L.Ed.2d 886 (2011). In Schad we cited State v. Djerf, 191 Ariz. 583, 959 P.2d 1274 (1998), as illustrating the Arizona nexus test, and concluded that such a test was found to be inconsistent with later constitutional analysis by the Supreme Court in Tennard v. Dretke, 542 U.S. 274, 124 S.Ct. 2562, 159 L.Ed.2d 384 (2004), and Smith v. Texas, 543 U.S. 37, 125 S.Ct. 400, 160 L.Ed.2d 303 (2004), which required consideration of all mitigating factors. Schad, 606 F.3d at 1045-47. The record in this case, however, does not indicate that either the state trial court or the Arizona Supreme Court applied such a nexus test. In sentencing Greenway to death, the trial court stated that it had considered all other mitigating factors, those presented at the aggravating-mitigating hearing, and also those which have been submitted to the Court in the sentencing memorandum and any other matters of record, and concluded that evidence of brutality ... far outweighs his chronological, emotional and mental age, and that there are no other mitigating factors sufficiently substantial to call for leniency. The Arizona Supreme Court's opinion indicates that it also considered all of the mitigating factors and did not find them sufficient to outweigh the aggravating circumstances. Greenway, 823 P.2d at 35-38 (reviewing all the mitigating factors, including Greenway's age and low I.Q., and finding that they were not sufficient to outweigh the three aggravating factors). We have recently rejected a similar argument under similar circumstances. See Schad, 606 F.3d at 1046 ([T]here is no indication that the state courts applied a nexus test....). Accordingly, we must conclude that under the standards applicable to our habeas review, the Arizona state court decision is neither contrary to clearly established Supreme Court precedent, nor an unreasonable application of the law. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).