Cite as: 503 U. S. 222 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
ant is deprived of the precision that individualized consideration demands under the Godfrey and Maynard line of cases.
These principles of appellate review were illustrated by our decision in Barclay v. Florida, 463 U. S. 939 (1983). Florida, like Mississippi, is a weighing State, Parker v. Dugger, supra, at 318, and the trial judge imposes the sentence based upon a recommendation from the jury. In Barclay the sentencing judge relied on an aggravating factor that was not a legitimate one under state law. We affirmed the sentence, but only because it was clear that the Florida Supreme Court had determined that the sentence would have been the same had the sentencing judge given no weight to the invalid factor. See 463 U. S., at 958 (plurality opinion); id., at 973-974 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). Therefore, contrary to the dissent's suggestion, post, at 245-247, the fact that both principal opinions in Barclay focused on the weight the sentencer gave to an invalid aggravating factor demonstrates that a reviewing court in a weighing State may not make the automatic assumption that such a factor has not infected the weighing process. In short, it may not make the automatic assumption that Stringer claims the Mississippi Supreme Court made in this case.
In view of the well-established general requirement of individualized sentencing and the more specific requirement that a sentence based on an improper factor be reassessed with care to assure that proper consideration was given, there was no arguable basis to support the view of the Court of Appeals that at the time petitioner's sentence became final the Mississippi Supreme Court was permitted to apply a rule of automatic affirmance to any death sentence supported by multiple aggravating factors, when one is invalid.
With respect to the function of a state reviewing court in determining whether the sentence can be upheld despite the use of an improper aggravating factor, the difference between a weighing State and a nonweighing State is not one of "semantics," as the Court of Appeals thought, Stringer v.
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