Walton v. Arizona
| Walton v. Arizona | |
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| Argued January 17, 1990 Decided June 27, 1990 |
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| Full case name | Jeffrey Alan Walton v. State of Arizona |
| Citations | 497 U.S. 639 (more) |
| Prior history | Defendant was convicted of first-degree murder in an Arizona superior court and sentenced to death. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence; cert. granted to U.S. Supreme Court. |
| Holding | |
| Under the Sixth Amendment, a jury need not pass on the aggravated factors required to impose a death sentence under Arizona law. Under the Eighth Amendment, the words "especially heinous, cruel, or depraved" were not unconstitutionally vague because the Arizona Supreme Court had developed an adequately narrow interpretation of those words. | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Plurality | White, joined by Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy |
| Concurrence | Scalia |
| Dissent | Brennan, joined by Marshall |
| Dissent | Blackmun, joined by Brennan, Marshall, Stevens |
| Dissent | Stevens |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. VI, VIII | |
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Superseded by
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| Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002) | |
Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case that upheld two important aspects of the capital sentencing scheme in Arizona — judicial sentencing and the aggravating factor "especially heinous, cruel, or depraved" — as not unconstitutionally vague. The Court overruled the first of these holdings in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002). The second of these holdings has yet to be overturned.
On the night of March 2, 1986, Walton and his two codefendants entered a bar in Tucson, Arizona, set on finding someone at random to rob, kidnap, and leave stranded in the desert. The person they chose was Thomas Powell, an off-duty Marine. The three robbed Powell at gunpoint and forced him into his car. Then they drove him out into the desert. While Walton's codefendants sat in the car with the radio turned up, Walton and Powell marched out into the desert. Walton threw Powell down on the ground and shot him once in the head. Walton bragged to his co-defendants that he had "never seen a man pee in his pants before." After Walton was arrested a week later, he led the police to Powell's body. The medical examiner revealed that Powell did not die instantly from the gunshot; rather, he had been blinded and rendered unconscious by the gunshot, and only died six days later from dehydration, starvation, and pneumonia.
A jury convicted Walton of first-degree murder under Arizona's alternate definitions of the crime, either premeditated murder or felony murder. As provided by Arizona law, the trial judge then conducted a sentencing hearing. The State proved two aggravating factors — that the murder was committed in an "especially heinous, cruel, or depraved manner," and that it was committed for pecuniary gain. In mitigation, he argued his relative youth (he was 20) and his diminished capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct. The trial judge found both aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt, that the mitigating factors were not sufficiently substantial to call for leniency, and then imposed a death sentence.
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