Court Opinion

ID: 9582692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:30:22.570836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:14.784574
License: Public Domain

MARTONE, Justice,
specially concurring.
I join the opinion of the court without reservation. I write only to state why I join the court in discontinuing proportionality reviews in death penalty cases.
All agree that proportionality reviews are not required by the federal or state constitutions. All agree that there is no express statutory authorization for propon tionality reviews in Arizona. It is also clear that the practice of proportionality reviews in death penalty cases had its origin in the mistaken notion that because some other state’s statute required them, so did the United States Constitution. Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37, 104 S.Ct. 871, 79 L.Ed.2d 29 (1984), put that erroneous notion to rest.
Two questions then arise. By what authority do we do them? Second, what good do they do? It seems plain and simple that there is no authority for conducting proportionality reviews in Arizona. No statute authorizes them. Our authority to perform them should be based upon something more than reliance upon prior judicial error.
But do they do any good? If I thought proportionality reviews would add one iota of trustworthiness to the capital sentencing process, then I could well understand, if not agree with, the view that we should ignore our lack of authority to perform *418them. But any review of our cases, simple or exhaustive, belies the proposition that they do any good. This court has extraordinary power to review death sentences under existing statutes. See A.R.S. § 13-703. This court even substitutes its judgment for that of the trial judge, something anathema in any other context. Thus, existing statutes and existing practices already give this court ample opportunity to do justice in any given death case. Our cases reveal that proportionality reviews are judicial afterthoughts, mere appendages to already lengthy opinions. They are performed in a non-adversarial setting, without any pretense at real science. They require a court to engage in the alchemy of measuring degrees of depravity among a handful of selected cases. The pursuit of justice does not require us to engage in unauthorized false science.