Opinion ID: 2975252
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Eighth Amendment Mitigation Requirement

Text: In this death penalty case, the constitutional right to show drug addiction in mitigation is particularly important because this was Cone’s only way to prove a sufficient lack of mental capacity to avoid the jury’s imposition of death in retribution for a brutal murder. In Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978), the Supreme Court stated “the Ohio death penalty statute does not permit the type of individualized consideration of mitigating factors we now hold to be required by the Eighth No. 99-5279 Cone v. Bell Page 15 and Fourteenth Amendments.” Lockett, therefore, absolutely forbids a state sentencing process that limits or proscribes the full consideration of addiction and other mitigators by the sentencer. By ruling immaterial the documented proof of addiction contradicting the prosecution’s “baloney” argument, the State and our court are permitting the execution of Cone in violation not only of Brady but also the Eighth Amendment’s mitigation line of death penalty cases, ending with Abdul-Kabir, quoted above. In its companion mitigation case, Brewer v. Quarterman, 505 U.S. ____, 127 S. Ct. 1706 (2007), the Court stated that “there is surely a reasonable likelihood that the jurors accepted the prosecutor’s argument at the close of the sentencing hearing” that Brewer’s mitigating evidence of drug abuse and mental illness was irrelevant to the issues. The Court went on to say that the prosecutor told the jury that “all they needed to decide was whether Brewer had acted deliberately and would likely be dangerous in the future, necessarily disregarding any independent concern that, given Brewer’s troubled background, he may not be deserving of a death sentence.” 127 S. Ct. at 1712. Cone’s claim in this case is much stronger than Brewer’s because the prosecution here not only misinterpreted the law, as in Brewer, but falsified the factual record. Cone should be allowed to advance his argument in mitigation that he does not deserve the death penalty. He should be allowed to go forward on the merits with his argument that the State has concealed mitigating evidence in violation of Brady.