holding that defendant “failed to show that the mitigating circumstances he had presented,” including a history of substance abuse, “outweighed the aggravating circumstances of his crimes”
How later courts described this case
- holding that defendant “failed to show that the mitigating circumstances he had presented,” including a history of substance abuse, “outweighed the aggravating circumstances of his crimes”
- deferring to Arizona state post-conviction court’s conclusion that failure to raise mitigation evidence would not have changed the sentence imposed, in part, because the judge “was the same judge who had handed down Mann’s initial sentence, giving him particular insight into how the additional evidence would, or would not, have changed Mann’s mitigation profile”
- stating that federal courts “defer to the reasonable credibility determinations made by the state post-conviction court”
- “[T]he post- conviction court was not excused from its obligation to apply Strickland because the same judge presided over both [the defendant’s] trial and post-conviction proceeding, and that judge concluded that the newly introduced evidence would not have changed his mind.” (emphasis in original)
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
CHRISTEN, Circuit Judge,
joined by BERZON, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I agree with the majority and the dissent that petitioner did not meet his burden of establishing a meritorious guilt-phase claim. As for petitioner’s sentencing-phase claim, I fully join the dissent’s Part IIA analysis and conclude that Mann is entitled to de novo review on his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The dissent meticulously traces the post-conviction court’s treatment of Mann’s mitigating evidence and conclusively establishes that the court did indeed apply the rule from State v. Hoskins, 199 Ariz. 127 , 14 P.3d 997 (2000) (en banc), a decision published by the Arizona Supreme Court less than a year before the court decided Mann’s post-conviction petition. Though this was exactly the course urged by the prosecution, it doomed the post-conviction court’s Strickland analysis because it unequivocally incorporated Eddings error. As the dissent makes plain, no speculation is required to conclude that the state court improperly weighed Mann’s mitigating evidence; the court said so. The dissent’s Part IIIA discussion of Strickland’s deficient performance prong is also compelling and I join it. But I ultimately conclude, as the majority does, that petitioner is not entitled to relief. In the end, I am not persuaded that petitioner met his burden of establishing that the errors he complains of prejudiced the outcome of his sentencing.