On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States reinstated a death sentence for Arizona inmate George Kayer. The Court’s opinion reverses a Ninth Circuit decision that granted habeas relief to Kayer.
In 1994, Kayer brutally murdered his friend, Delbert Haas, to rob Haas of his belongings. Kayer shot Haas in the back of the head while pulled over alongside the Interstate in Yavapai County.
Kayer has now exhausted all of his appeals.
The Arizona courts consistently denied relief to Kayer, including on his claim that his attorneys erred by not presenting certain evidence at sentencing. The Ninth Circuit, however, granted habeas relief based on Kayer’s attorneys’ alleged sentencing error and concluded that he was entitled to a new sentencing trial.
In reversing this ruling, SCOTUS found that the Ninth Circuit had “resolved this case in a manner fundamentally inconsistent” with the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which requires federal courts to defer to state-court decisions. Under an appropriately deferential review, the Arizona courts had reasonably rejected Kayer’s challenge to his death sentence, and he was not entitled to a new sentencing trial.