holding that the meaning of relevance in the context of mitigating evidence introduced in a capital sentencing proceeding is no different than in any other context, and thus the general evidentiary standard of "any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence" applies
How later courts described this case
- holding that the meaning of relevance in the context of mitigating evidence introduced in a capital sentencing proceeding is no different than in any other context, and thus the general evidentiary standard of "any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence" applies
- explaining that evidence of "[i]mpaired intellectual functioning has mitigating dimension beyond the impact it has on the individual's ability to act deliberately," and thus, it "might serve as a basis for a sentence less than death" (internal quotations and citations omitted)
- stating that once the low threshold for relevant evidence is met, "the Eighth Amendment requires that the jury be able to consider and give effect to a capital defendant’s mitigating evidence” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)
- holding that petitioner was entitled to a COA on his Penry claim where his evidence of low IQ and impaired intellectual functioning had "mitigating dimension beyond the impact it has on the individual's ability to act deliberately"
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Sheppard v. Bagley, 657 F.3d 338 (2011)
Tennard is inapposite here because it was decided after the Ohio Supreme Court decision in this case.
The opinion
Justice Scalia,
dissenting.
Petitioner argues that Texas’s statutory special issues framework unconstitutionally constrained the jury’s discretion to give effect to his mitigating evidence of a low IQ score, violating the requirement that “ ‘ “a senteneer must be allowed to give full consideration and full effect to mitigating circumstances.” ’ ” Reply Brief for Petitioner 4 (quoting Penry v. Johnson, 532 U. S. 782, 797 (2001) (Penry II), in turn quoting Johnson v. Texas, 509 U. S. 350, 381 (1993) (O’Connor, J., dissenting)). This claim relies on Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302 (1989) (Penry I), a case that applied principles earlier limned in Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U. S. 104 (1982), and Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586 (1978).
I have previously expressed my view that this “right” to unchanneled senteneer discretion has no basis in the Constitution. See Penry I, supra, at 356-360 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). I have also said that the Court’s decisions establishing this right do not deserve stare decisis effect, because requiring unchanneled discretion to say no to death cannot rationally be reconciled with our prior decisions requiring canalized discretion to say yes. “[T]he practice which in Furman [v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972) (per curiam),] had been described as the discretion to sentence to death and pronounced constitutionally prohibited, was in Woodson [v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280 (1976) (plurality opinion),] and Lockett renamed the discretion not to *294 sentence to death and pronounced constitutionally required.” Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S. 639, 662 (1990) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
The Court returned greater rationality to our Penry jurisprudence by cutting it back in Graham v. Collins, 506 U. S. 461 (1993), and Johnson v. Texas, supra. I joined the Court in this pruning effort, noting that “the essence of today’s holding (to the effect that discretion may constitutionally be channeled) was set forth in my dissent in Penry.” Id., at 374 (concurring opinion). As The Chief Justice notes, the lower courts’ disposition of petitioner’s Penry claim in the present case was entirely appropriate under these cases. Ante, at 290-293 (dissenting opinion). Yet the opinion for the Court does not even acknowledge their existence. It finds failings in the Fifth Circuit’s framework for analyzing Penry claims as if this Court’s own jurisprudence were not the root of the problem. “The simultaneous pursuit of contradictory objectives necessarily produces confusion.” Walton, supra, at 667 .
Although the present case involves only a certificate of ap-pealability (COA) ruling, rather than a ruling directly on the merits of petitioner’s claim, I cannot require the issuance of a COA when the insubstantial right at issue derives from case law in which this Court has long left the Constitution behind and embraced contradiction. I respectfully dissent.