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¶71 The Eighth Amendment “requires that a sentencer’s discretion be channeled and limited to avoid the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action.” (citing Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U.S. 356, 361 (1988)).

-39, -59 (1990) (“We consider the terms ‘especially heinous, cruel or depraved’ in the disjunctive[,] and a finding beyond a reasonable doubt of any one of the three alternative elements is sufficient to find this circumstance exists.”).

“The eighth amendment requires that the sentencer’s discretion be channeled and limited to avoid the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action.”

¶ 20, (finding gratuitous violence when the defendant killed the victim after a prolonged attack in which he struck the victim in the head with a club, dragged her into another room, raped her, and then stabbed her 42 several times); (finding gratuitous violence when after shooting the victim twice in the face, the defendant later returned and beat the victim over the head with a bottle and then went to the kitchen and got a knife and stabbed the victim several times).

P.3d 753 (2007); P.2d 352 (1990); P.3d 391 (App. 2002), Joyner argues that whether a defendant’s prior conviction may be characterized as a violent crime as defined in § 13- 604.04 is a legal question that may be resolved only by reference to the statutory elements of the offense of co

See Fernane, 185 Ariz. at 225 , 914 P.2d at 1317 (finding that “[a]n assertion that a prior act is too different or too remote in time from the charged offense goes ‘to the weight of the evidence,’ ” and not to relevance or admissibility); -36 , -56 (1990).

at 334 , 819 P.2d at 920 ( , ); , (precluding the State from calling the victim of a prior crime to testify that it had been committed with violence on the grounds that the court would not “allow what is, in effect, a second trial on defendant’

403”); , (“Once a defendant raises insanity as a defense, evidence of prior bad acts falls out of the limitations of Rule 404.

See, , (finding especially heinous or depraved circumstance where defendant used more force than necessary to kill victim by using multiple instruments to inflict wounds).

An assertion that a prior act is too different or too remote in time from the charged offense goes “to the weight of the evidence, not whether the evidence is relevant and admissible.” -36 , -56 (1990), cert.

(absent contrary proof, trial judge presumed to evaluate only relevant sentencing factors or to set aside the irrelevant, inflammatory, and emotional), cert.