224
Opinion of the Court
sition that if a State uses aggravating factors in deciding who shall be eligible for, or receive, the death penalty, it cannot use factors which as a practical matter fail to guide the sentencer's discretion. See 494 U. S., at 756, n. 1 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). The fact that two pre-Clemons Fifth Circuit cases ruled Godfrey inapplicable to Mississippi is not dispositive, since those cases ignored the State Supreme Court's own characterization of its law and accorded no significance to the centrality of aggravating factors in the weighing phase of a Mississippi capital sentencing proceeding, and were therefore seriously mistaken under precedents existing even before Maynard and Clemons. Pp. 232-237. 909 F. 2d 111, reversed and remanded.
Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and White, Blackmun, Stevens, and O'Connor, JJ., joined. Souter, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined, post, p. 238.
Kenneth J. Rose, by appointment of the Court, 502 U. S. 1011, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were James W. Craig and Louis D. Bilionis.
Marvin L. White, Jr., Assistant Attorney General of Mississippi, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief was Mike Moore, Attorney General.*
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court. The death sentence of the petitioner in this case was decreed by a judgment that became final before we decided
*Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of Texas et al. by Dan Morales, Attorney General of Texas, Will Pryor, First Assistant Attorney General, Mary F. Keller, Deputy Attorney General, and Michael P. Hodge, Dana E. Parker, and Margaret Portman Griffey, Assistant Attorneys General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: James H. Evans of Alabama, Grant Woods of Arizona, Daniel Lungren of California, Linley E. Pearson of Indiana, Frederic J. Cowan of Kentucky, William B. Webster of Missouri, Marc Racicot of Montana, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Lacy H. Thornburg of North Carolina, Susan B. Loving of Oklahoma, Ernest D. Preate, Jr., of Pennsylvania, Mary Sue Terry of Virginia, and Joseph B. Meyer of Wyoming; and for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger.
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