Jimmie Wayne Jeffers v. Samuel Lewis, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections, Donald B. Wawrzaszek, Superintendent, Arizona State Prison

AMENDED OPINION

Petitioner Jimmie Wayne Jeffers was convicted of first degree murder by an Arizona jury. After a sentencing hearing in 1978, the trial court found ‘ two aggravating circumstances and sentenced Jeffers to death. Jeffers’s sentence was vacated and his case remanded for a new sentencing hearing after the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Watson, 120 Ariz. 441 , 586 P.2d 1253 (1978). In Watson , the Arizona Supreme Court applied the principles of Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 , 98 S.Ct. 2954 , 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), which held that a sentencer in a capital proceeding cannot be restricted to the specific mitigating factors enumerated in the statute and cannot be precluded from considering any aspect of a defendant’s character or background that the defendant offers as a reason to impose a sentence other than death.

At the supplementary resentencing hearing in 1980, the trial court again found, two aggravating factors and again sentenced-Jeffers to death. After the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence, and after exhausting his state remedies, Jeffers unsuccessfully petitioned the United States District Court for a writ of habeas corpus.…

dissenting:

The majority again oversteps the proper role of a federal court hearing a challenge to the constitutionality of a death sentence un *1210 der state law. Accordingly, I must again respectfully dissent.

The majority believes the Arizona Supreme Court may not have discharged its constitutional duty to reweigh the aggravating and mitigating evidence after invalidating one aggravating circumstance and modifying another. The majority’s conclusion in this regard is not supported by the record and is wholly at odds with deferential habeas corpus review.

The record in this case shows the sentencing judge and Arizona Supreme Court fully considered all mitigating evidence offered by petitioner and separately concluded this evidence did not call for leniency.

A. The Sentencing Hearings

Petitioner’s claim for leniency principally rested on the argument that his use of heroin, both on the day of the murder and over the long run, diminished his capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law — particularly given his “stormy” love-hate relationship with the victim. These dual themes of intoxication and provocation were presented to the sentencing judge under a…

5 F.3d 1199 Jimmie Wayne JEFFERS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Samuel LEWIS, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections, Donald B. Wawrzaszek, Superintendent, Arizona State Prison, Respondents-Appellees. No. 86-1840. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted July 24, 1991. Decided Aug. 31, 1992. As Amended Sept. 17, 1993. Donald S. Klein and Frank P. Leto, Deputy Public Defenders, Pima County Public Defender's Office, Tucson, AZ, for petitioner-appellant. Paul J. McMurdie, Chief Counsel, Criminal Appeals Section, Attorney General's Office, Tucson, AZ, for respondents-appellees. Before: PREGERSON and CANBY, Circuit Judges, and WILSON, District Judge. * AMENDED OPINION PREGERSON, Circuit Judge: 1 Petitioner Jimmie Wayne Jeffers was convicted of first degree murder by an Arizona jury. After a sentencing hearing in 1978, the trial court found two aggravating circumstances and sentenced Jeffers to death. Jeffers's sentence was vacated and his case remanded for a new sentencing hearing after the Arizona Supreme Court's decision in State v. Watson, 120 Ariz. 441 , 586 P.2d 1253 (1978). In Watson, the Arizona Supreme Court applied the principles of Lockett v. Ohio,…