Poyson v. Ryan, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 5732

Poyson, born August 1976, committed murders in 1996 with accomplices to steal a truck.
He was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder, plus conspiracy and armed robbery, in 1998.
Mitigation evidence included his substance abuse history, troubled childhood, and mental health issues, presented at a one-day sentencing hearing.
The trial court rejected statutory and nonstatutory mitigating factors and imposed death; it awarded one nonstatutory factor (cooperation) but deemed it insufficient.
The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence after independently reviewing aggravation and mitigation, finding no substantial mitigating weight for substance abuse, mental health, or childhood trauma.
Poyson sought federal habeas relief; the district court denied relief on the merits and held the penalty-phase ineffective assistance claim procedurally defaulted

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Arizona applied an unconstitutional causal nexus to mitigating evidence	Poyson argues nexus screening violated Eighth/Fourteenth Amendment rights	Arizona courts weighed mitigating evidence via nexus; not clearly unconstitutional	No AEDPA relief due to ambiguous record; cannot conclude unconstitutional nexus
Whether the Arizona courts failed to consider substance abuse as mitigating evidence	Substance abuse evidence was improperly ignored as mitigating	Evidence was considered but found insufficient; no constitutional violation	No Lockett/Eddings violation; evidence deemed insufficientweight
Whether trial counsel's penalty-phase performance was procedurally defaulted on the new FASD theory	Federal claim about fetal alcohol spectrum disorder was exhausted and disturbs state court ruling	New FASD theory not fairly presented to state courts; procedurally defaulted	Procedurally defaulted; affirmed denial of relief

Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978) (mitigating evidence must be considered)
Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 (1982) (sentencer may not bar relevant mitigating evidence)
Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989) (mitigation must be considered; weight is at issue)
Tennard v. Dretke, 542 U.S. 274 (2004) (no screening out mitigating evidence lacking nexus)
Schad v. Ryan, 671 F.3d 708 (2011) (ambiguous state-court reasoning; need record-based analysis)
Towery v. Ryan, 673 F.3d 933 (2012) (nexus may be weight, but not screening)
Lopez v. Ryan, 630 F.3d 1198 (2011) (look to record, not silence, for constitutional error)
Styers v. Schriro, 547 F.3d 1026 (2008) (precludes unconstitutional screening of mitigation)
Parker v. Dugger, 498 U.S. 308 (1991) (reweighing error vs. meaningful appellate review)
Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19 (2002) (ambiguity in state decisions reviewed with deference)
Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254 (1986) (exhaustion and new claims doctrine referenced)
Cullen v. Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. 1388 (2011) (limitations on new evidence in review)