State v. Correll

In State v. Correll, 148 Ariz. 468, 715 P.2d 721 (1986), the Arizona Supreme Court had held that the legislature's addition of an aggravating circumstance to the capital sentencing statute (committing one or more other homicides during the commission of the offense) was a substantive change in the law that disadvantaged the defendant to whom it had been applied. The court found that retroactive application of the new provision to a defendant who had committed offenses before the effective date of the statute violated the ex post facto prohibitions of the federal and state constitutions.