Justices deny Ariz. murderer’s appeal
In 5-4 ruling, dissent says jury was needed
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court denied a new sentencing hearing Tuesday for an Arizona prisoner convicted of two brutal murders nearly three decades ago.
Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the 5-4 opinion and was joined by the court’s four other conservatives. In a familiar pattern, particularly in death penalty cases, the four liberal justices dissented.
The case involved James McKinney, who killed two people in separate incidents in 1991. His lawyers argued that he suffered from severe abuse as a child that was not considered when he was sentenced to die, and only reconsidered at the appellate court level. They also said he deserved to be sentenced by a jury, rather than a judge.
The Supreme Court ruled in an Arizona case in 2002 that juries must make the findings that help determine life or death sentences. While that ruling did not apply retroactively, a new trial court proceeding might have given McKinney that chance.
“According to McKinney, appellate courts may no longer reweigh aggravating and mitigating circumstances in determining whether to uphold a death sentence. McKinney is incorrect,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the liberals, said a jury should have decided on McKinney’s fate.
“I would therefore hold McKinney’s death sentences unconstitutional,” she said.
A coalition of 15 states had urged the court not to grant the new sentencing hearing because it could affect other death-row inmates. They are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah.
McKinney and his half-brother, Charles Hedlund, were sentenced to death by a Maricopa County Superior Court judge for the murders of Chandler residents Christene Mertens, 41, and Jim McClain, 65, during a 1991 burglary spree.
Mertens was home alone when the two broke in, beat and stabbed her and then shot her in the back of the head. They took $120.
McClain was asleep at his house when they broke in and shot him in the back of the head. They took his watch, three handguns and his car, according to records.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit overturned Hedlund’s sentence after his attorneys argued that a history of childhood abuse, alcoholism, posttraumatic stress disorder, a low IQ and other factors mitigated against imposition of the death penalty.
In McKinney’s case, the appeals court similarly ruled that his sentence violated high court precedents. But when the case was sent back to the Arizona Supreme Court, it decided in 2018 to uphold the death sentence.