State v. Howard - May 21, 2026

argument

State v. Howard

Arizona Supreme Court 46 min 8 chapters transcribed 1 month ago official recording ↗

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What procedural rule governs the substitution of a sentencing judge in Arizona?

Unknown 4:16

Good morning. We're here for oral argument on state of Arizona versus DeAndra Sherell Howard. It's our number C R two five zero two one one. Each side knows you have twenty minutes. You may keep whatever time you wish for rebuttal, but you have to keep your time yourself. Please proceed.

Karen Moody 4:43

Good morning, Karen Moody for the state of Arizona. I'll try to reserve three minutes, but we'll see how that goes. May it please the court. There is no rule of criminal procedure specifically requiring a substitute sentencing judge to order and review transcripts before proceeding with sentencing. The state is in agreement with Howard that a sentencing judge should be prepared. But each case is unique. And the amount of preparation necessary will differ from one case to the next. Instead of creating a new rule or creating a standalone claim of failure to prepare. We should return to this court's original approach in cases like this. A sentence in court will abuse its discretion. By acting arbitrarily or capriciously.

Karen Moody 5:24

Or by failing to conduct an adequate investigation into the facts necessary for an intelligent exercise of its sentencing power. That last category does not give Howard an opening here. The adequate investigation cases like Rear or Stotz are due process cases. They require a defendant to show that the sentencing court relied on objectively incorrect information. That is not going to include a dispute over how evidence is characterized by opposing parties, particularly when there's no evidence visible in the record. That the sentencing court relied on these characterizations. Instead of re relying on the existing case law. The Court of Appeals majority here found rule nineteen point four. A rule that explains what to do when a judge who is hearing or trying a criminal proceeding becomes incapacitated.

Karen Moody 6:10

The rule discusses recessing the court. Entering an order to continue a trial, continuing or restarting a trial or proceeding, and potentially d declaring a mistrial. It does not discuss what to do when there is nothing to restart or continue. The majority pulled out the fourth sentence from the rule, which states if the new judge believes after reviewing the record that continuing the proceeding would be unduly prejudicial, the judge must order a new trial or proceeding. And from that language, the majority found that it was reversible error when the substitute sentencing judge in this case failed to stop the sentencing hearing, order transcripts, and read the transcripts at the defendant's request.

Unknown 6:47

So is it your position, counselor, that Rule nineteen point four applies, but it was satisfied, so we're done with that and we're moving on to some other line of inquiry. No,

Karen Moody 6:56

the rule nineteen point four does not apply. The plain language of the rule, read in context, does not apply to a situation where you're not restart there you're not in a position to restart a hearing or proceeding.

Unknown 7:08

Then what do you make of the fact that we didn't adopt the federal rule?

Karen Moody 7:12

I'm not sure that we can read much into the fact that we didn't adopt the federal rule. Um, we didn't adopt this our civil rule either. the federal rule um I I I guess I can we I don't know that we can read much of anything into it at all.

Unknown 7:31

Well looking at the the language of the rule, um An issue that the uh parties didn't brief and that the Court of Appeals, in my opinion, completely glossed over. is the illness or incapacity language, which is obviously a threshold condition for the rule to apply in the first place. And the Court of Appeals looked at dictionary definitions and found that illness or or other incapacity which would seem to refer back to the like uh uh category of of illness included physical incapacity. uh and mental incapacity and then said, Oh, and by the way, the the the cases also include recusal. To me, those are very, very different uh things. Um and um I I uh the analysis of the rule that that we have includes recusals without any um explanation for that whatsoever.

Unknown 8:36

So as someone who's looking at the plain language of the rule de I uh uh