Cite as: 520 U. S. 518 (1997)
Stevens, J., dissenting
A critical part of that "cabining," however, is Florida's requirement that a properly instructed jury must have an opportunity to recommend a life sentence, and that the judge must give great weight to that recommendation. The role of the jury is to provide one of the cabin's four walls. The fact that three walls remain standing hardly excuses an error that removed the wall represented by the jury's recommendation. At the time of petitioner's sentencing, the Florida Supreme Court recognized the jury's critical role, and, when error occurred before the jury, did not hesitate to remand for resentencing, even when the trial judge claimed to be unaffected by the error. For example in Messer v. State, 330 So. 2d 137, 142 (1976), the State Supreme Court remanded for resentencing when the trial court failed to allow the jury to consider certain mitigating evidence. The court rejected the argument that the trial court's subsequent weighing of the mitigating evidence cured the error: The Florida scheme, the court concluded, was one of "checks and balances in which the input of the jury serves as an integral part." Ibid. Our holding in Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U. S. 242, 255 (1976) ( joint opinion), that Florida's sentencing scheme is not facially unconstitutional does not suggest otherwise. There, we determined that the State's sentencing procedure provided adequate safeguards against arbitrary imposition of the death sentence in part because of the procedures followed by the trial judge in fixing the sentence. Our focus was on the adequacy of the guidance provided by the sentencing scheme; accordingly, we had no need to extensively examine or discuss the judge's relationship to the jury or Florida Supreme Court decisions like Tedder.
Second, simply ignoring the reasoning in Tedder, the Court suggests that there was "no error for the trial judge to cure, since under Florida law the trial court, not the jury, was the sentencer." Ante, at 533 (emphasis deleted). It is, of course, true that the judge imposes the sentence after receiving the jury's recommendation. But this has never
543
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