McKinney v. Arizona
The Court ruled 5-4 that when a constitutional error is found in a capital sentence, a state appellate court may fix it by reweighing the evidence itself, without sending the case back to a new jury — and may do so even when the error is discovered through a post-conviction habeas proceeding.
The decision keeps James McKinney's two Arizona death sentences in place and confirms that a twenty-year-old Supreme Court rule allowing appellate courts to recalibrate flawed death sentences remains valid law.
“there is no meaningful difference for purposes of appellate reweighing between subtracting an aggravator from one side of the scale and adding a mitigator to the other side.”
The majority's core reasoning for why Clemons applies equally to cases involving ignored mitigating factors.
How it got here: McKinney's conviction became final in 1996; the Ninth Circuit granted habeas relief for an Eddings sentencing error; the Arizona Supreme Court reweighed the factors and again upheld the death sentences; McKinney then asked the Supreme Court to step in.
The Case in Depth
What happened
James McKinney was convicted of two first-degree murders committed during burglaries in the Phoenix area in 1991. His trial judge — not a jury — found aggravating factors, weighed them against mitigating ones, and sentenced McKinney to death in 1993. About twenty years later, a federal court found that Arizona had violated McKinney's constitutional rights by refusing to consider his post-traumatic stress disorder, rooted in a traumatic childhood, as relevant mitigating evidence when imposing the death sentence.
The question before the Court
After a federal court found that Arizona improperly ignored a death-row inmate's PTSD when sentencing him, could the Arizona Supreme Court fix that error by recalculating the sentence itself — or did a new jury have to resentence him?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Arizona Supreme Court was permitted to recalculate McKinney's death sentence on its own, without convening a new jury. The Court relied on its 1990 ruling in Clemons v. Mississippi, which established that a state appellate court may correct a flawed capital sentence by reweighing all the aggravating and mitigating factors itself. McKinney argued Clemons didn't apply because his case involved an improperly ignored mitigating factor rather than an improper aggravating one, but the Court rejected that distinction: for purposes of appellate reweighing, subtracting an aggravator and adding a mitigator are legally equivalent.
The Court also rejected McKinney's argument that later decisions requiring juries to find facts that make a defendant death-eligible had silently overturned Clemons. Those decisions apply to the threshold eligibility finding, not to the weighing of factors within the sentencing range. And because McKinney's conviction became final long before those rulings, which do not apply retroactively to cases already finished on direct appeal, they offered him no relief regardless.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Death-row inmates in Arizona and other states who win post-conviction relief for sentencing errors will not automatically receive a new jury sentencing. State supreme courts may instead correct the error themselves by reweighing the aggravating and mitigating evidence, a faster and less resource-intensive remedy that leaves the death sentence intact unless the reweighing tips toward leniency.
What changes now
McKinney's two death sentences remain in place following the Arizona Supreme Court's 2018 reweighing, which the Supreme Court has now affirmed. No further resentencing proceedings are required. Going forward, when Arizona or other state courts discover constitutional sentencing errors in capital cases on collateral review, they may choose to reweigh the evidence themselves rather than empanel a new jury — though states retain the option of ordering a new sentencing proceeding if they prefer.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly noted its ruling does not allow states to label any proceeding "collateral" to avoid current constitutional standards — for example, a state could not use that label to conduct what is really a new trial. The ruling also does not address what would happen if a reweighing proceeding were characterized as direct review under state law.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Ginsburg
“Renewal of direct review cannot sensibly be characterized as anything other than direct review.”The dissent's central objection: the 2018 Arizona proceeding was a replay of the original direct appeal and should be treated as one.
Justice Ginsburg argued the Arizona Supreme Court's 2018 proceeding was, in substance, a continuation of direct review — a do-over of the 1996 appeal — and should be treated as such for constitutional purposes. Because Ring v. Arizona applies to cases on direct review, and Ring requires juries (not judges) to find the facts making someone death-eligible, McKinney's judge-imposed death sentences are unconstitutional. The dissent would reverse and hold that whether a proceeding is direct or collateral is a federal constitutional question that state courts cannot resolve by affixing a label.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court's 1990 decision in Clemons v. Mississippi established the core principle: when a capital sentence is infected by error, a state appellate court — rather than a new jury — may correct it by independently reweighing all the aggravating and mitigating evidence. The Court treats such a reweighing as analogous to harmless-error review, which courts routinely perform without juries.
- McKinney argued Clemons was limited to cases involving an improper aggravating factor, and could not apply where the error was an improperly ignored mitigating factor like his PTSD. The Court disagreed: Clemons rested on the general ability of appellate courts to weigh both sides of the sentencing scale, and the Court in Clemons explicitly said appellate courts can 'fully consider and give effect to mitigating evidence.' Subtracting a bad aggravator and adding a previously ignored mitigator are both just reweighing.
- McKinney next argued that Ring v. Arizona (2002) and Hurst v. Florida (2016) — which held that juries must find the facts making a defendant eligible for death — implicitly overruled Clemons and now require juries to do all capital sentencing work. The Court disagreed: Ring and Hurst addressed only the threshold eligibility finding, not the weighing of factors once a defendant is eligible. Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) had already made clear that judges may exercise discretion in imposing a sentence within a lawful range.
- McKinney's fallback argument was that the Arizona Supreme Court's 2018 review effectively reopened his direct appeal, meaning Ring and Hurst should apply to him directly (new rules apply to cases still on direct appeal). But the Court held it could not second-guess the Arizona Supreme Court's characterization of its own proceeding as a collateral — not direct — review under state law.
- Because Ring and Hurst do not apply retroactively on collateral review (as already established in Schriro v. Summerlin, 2004), and because Clemons permits appellate reweighing as a remedy for capital sentencing errors including Eddings errors, the Arizona Supreme Court acted lawfully when it reweighed the evidence and again upheld McKinney's death sentences.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Clemons v. Mississippi (494 U.S. 738)
State appellate courts may reweigh capital sentencing factors themselves, without a new jury, even after collateral review finds error.
Distinguishes Ring v. Arizona (536 U.S. 584)
Ring requires juries to find death-eligibility facts but does not require juries to weigh aggravators and mitigators.
Distinguishes Hurst v. Florida (577 U.S. ___)
Hurst, like Ring, addresses eligibility findings only and does not mandate jury weighing of sentencing factors.
Reaffirms Schriro v. Summerlin (542 U.S. 348)
Ring does not apply retroactively to cases already final on direct review, confirming McKinney gets no benefit from it.