Cite as: 503 U. S. 222 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
the jury's determination whether to impose the death penalty. See also Evans v. State, 422 So. 2d 737, 743 (Miss. 1982) (applying Godfrey). It would be a strange rule of federalism that ignores the view of the highest court of a State as to the meaning of its own law. See Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S., at 310 (discussing federalism as one of the concerns underlying the nonretroactivity principle).
As a matter of federal law, moreover, the view of the Mississippi Supreme Court that Godfrey's dictates apply to its capital sentencing procedure is correct. Indeed, it is so evident that the issue was not even mentioned in Clemons. There we took for granted, and the State did not challenge, the proposition that if a State uses aggravating factors in deciding who shall be eligible for the death penalty or who shall receive the death penalty, it cannot use factors which as a practical matter fail to guide the sentencer's discretion. See Clemons, 494 U. S., at 756, n. 1 (opinion of Blackmun, J., joined by Brennan, Marshall, and Stevens, JJ., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (noting that the unconstitutionality of the vague aggravating factor is implicit in the Court's opinion).
Even were we free to ignore the Mississippi Supreme Court's understanding of the way its own law works, we would reject the suggestion that Lowenfield could form the basis for an argument that Godfrey does not apply to Mississippi. Although our precedents do not require the use of aggravating factors, they have not permitted a State in which aggravating factors are decisive to use factors of vague or imprecise content. A vague aggravating factor employed for the purpose of determining whether a defendant is eligible for the death penalty fails to channel the sentencer's discretion. A vague aggravating factor used in the weighing process is in a sense worse, for it creates the risk that the jury will treat the defendant as more deserving of the death penalty than he might otherwise be by relying upon the existence of an illusory circumstance. Because the
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