State of Arizona, Appellee v. Aaron Scott Hoskins, Appellant

Summary

The Arizona Supreme Court, sitting en banc, affirmed Aaron Scott Hoskins' convictions for premeditated murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, and theft and affirmed his death sentence on mandatory appeal. The court held the Miranda and involuntariness challenges to his post-arrest statements were moot or waived, the warrantless arrest and show-up identification were lawful, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in juror selection, mistrial denials, or evidentiary rulings, and Arizona's death penalty statute is constitutional. It sustained pecuniary gain as the sole aggravating factor, gave insignificant weight to age as the only established mitigator, rejected all other statutory and nonstatutory mitigation for lack of a causal nexus to the crime, and independently reweighed in favor of death. Chief Justice Zlaket, joined by Justice Feldman, dissented, contending the jury's rejection of felony murder undermined the pecuniary-gain finding and that substantial mitigation and the disparity with co-defendant DeShaw's life sentence required a life sentence instead.