Richmond v. Lewis

Background

Bernard Richmond was convicted of robbery and first-degree murder for a 1973 killing. At resentencing in 1980 the trial judge found three aggravating circumstances, including Arizona’s “especially heinous, cruel or depraved” factor, and again imposed death. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed in a divided decision: a principal opinion applied a narrowing rule, a special concurrence disagreed about the heinousness finding but still joined the result, and a dissent would have reversed.

Reasoning

The U.S. Supreme Court asked whether the Arizona court had cured the constitutional vagueness of the (F)(6) “especially heinous” factor. The Court explained that when a sentencing system requires the judge to weigh aggravating and mitigating evidence (a “weighing” State), an appellate court must actually reweigh if it relies on an invalid factor. The concurrence in the Arizona decision failed to perform that reweighing, and the majority concluded the error was not cured. The Court therefore held the death sentence invalid and instructed the lower courts to grant habeas relief unless Arizona corrects or vacates the sentence.

Real world impact

The ruling requires that, in States where judges balance aggravating and mitigating factors, courts cannot preserve a death sentence without doing a true new weighing when an invalid aggravating factor taints the sentence. Practically, a condemned person may receive resentencing or a reduced punishment unless the State fixes the constitutional error. The decision sends cases back to lower courts for relief when reweighing was not done.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Thomas wrote separately agreeing with the result and invoked prior rules about automatic affirmance; Justice Scalia dissented, arguing the death sentence should stand because two valid aggravating factors remained and he would not impose the additional reweighing requirement.