Court Opinion

ID: 9557531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 16:51:48.365382+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:55.359446
License: Public Domain

FELDMAN, Chief Justice,
specially concurring.
I concur in the court’s opinion and join in affirming the conviction.
Reluctantly, I also join in affirming the death penalty. As the court notes, neither the United States nor Arizona Constitution forbids the execution of a sixteen-year-old boy. What is not forbidden, however, is also not commanded by the constitution. We have the discretion to impose either the death penalty or life imprisonment on Defendant. We exercise this discretion in light of the principle that youth is one of the most important mitigating factors to be considered when deciding whether death is the appropriate penalty. State v. Valencia, 132 Ariz. 248, 250-51, 645 P.2d 239, 241-42 (1982); see also Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982).
Even with this principle in mind, I find it necessary to join in affirming the death penalty in this case. The facts are so egregious and the crime so shockingly evil that to hold that Defendant’s age alone outweighs the aggravating circumstances is to say that we will never impose the death penalty on a sixteen-year-old defendant. In itself, that might not be an inappropriate statement. But having said that, at what age do we draw the line? Arizona has enacted a constitutional capital sentencing law that draws no bright line at age. Consequently, our law allows imposition of the death penalty on any defendant at least sixteen years of age. Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361, 109 S.Ct. 2969, 106 L.Ed.2d 306 (1989) (Eighth Amendment forbids execution of children below the age of sixteen).
Thus, in view of the deplorable facts in this case and the absence of other significant mitigation, I am forced to approve the death penalty, even though it is quite evident that *33by imposing such penalty on Levi Jaimes Jackson, we say almost as much about our society and ourselves as we do about Jackson and his crime.