238
Souter, J., dissenting
Justice Souter, with whom Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
Today the Court holds that no reasonable jurist could have believed in 1985, two years after Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862 (1983), that the holding of that case would apply to a so-called "weighing" State. The Court maintains, on the contrary, that in 1985 it was obvious that a sentencer's weighing of a vague aggravating circumstance deprives a defendant of individualized sentencing. While that may be obvious after Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U. S. 356 (1988), I submit that was not so before this Court decided that case. I respectfully dissent.
I
Under the principle first announced in Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), a prisoner seeking habeas corpus relief in federal court generally cannot benefit from a new rule announced after the prisoner's conviction became final, id., at 301 (plurality opinion), that is, after exhausting all direct appeals, see Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 314 (1989). A decision announces a new rule "if the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final." Teague, supra, at 301 (plurality opinion) (emphasis omitted). The result in a given case is not dictated by precedent if it is "susceptible to debate among reasonable minds," Butler v. McKellar, 494 U. S. 407, 415 (1990), or, put differently, if "reasonable jurists may disagree," Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U. S. 227, 234 (1990).
Petitioner's conviction became final for Teague purposes on February 19, 1985. He now claims the benefit of the rule that an Eighth Amendment violation occurs when a sentencer in a weighing State considers a vague aggravating circumstance, even if the sentencer has also found the existence of at least one other aggravating circumstance that is neither vague nor otherwise infirm. Because this Court never endorsed that position before February 19, 1985, I will discuss the relevant pre-1985 decisions, infra, Part I-A, and
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