United States Ninth Circuit

District court's denial of defendant's petition for habeas relief from his felony murder convictions and sentence of death is affirmed in part, vacated in part and remanded where: 1) the Arizona Supreme Court's application of Enmund and Tison to the facts of the case was not objectively unreasonable; 2) the court did not base its decision on clearly erroneous determination of the facts; but 3) because defendant defaulted on his ineffective assistance of counsel claim by failing to fairly present the claim to the Arizona courts, the case is vacated and remanded to allow the district court to reassess whether the defendant has established cause and prejudice for the procedural default under Martinez v. Ryan.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/03/2012
• Published 08/03/2012

Judges

• Smith

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel