Cite as: 504 U. S. 527 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
stated in Proffitt, but instead evince inconsistent and over-broad constructions that leave a trial court without sufficient guidance. And we may well agree with him that the Supreme Court of Florida has not confined its discussions on the matter to the Dixon language we approved in Proffitt, but has on occasion continued to invoke the entire Dixon statement quoted above, perhaps thinking that Proffitt approved it all. See, e. g., Porter v. State, 564 So. 2d 1060 (1990), cert. denied, 498 U. S. 1110 (1991); Cherry v. State, 544 So. 2d 184, 187 (1989), cert. denied, 494 U. S. 1090 (1990); Lucas v. State, 376 So. 2d 1149, 1153 (1979).
But however much that may be troubling in the abstract, it need not trouble us here, for our review of Florida law indicates that the State Supreme Court has consistently held that heinousness is properly found if the defendant strangled a conscious victim. See Hitchcock v. State, 578 So. 2d 685, 692-693 (1990), cert. denied, 502 U. S. 912 (1991); Holton v. State, 573 So. 2d 284, 292 (1990); Tompkins v. State, 502 So. 2d 415, 421 (1986); Johnson v. State, 465 So. 2d 499, 507, cert. denied, 474 U. S. 865 (1985); Adams v. State, 412 So. 2d 850, cert. denied, 459 U. S. 882 (1982). Cf. Rhodes v. State, 547 So. 2d 1201, 1208 (1989) (strangulation of semiconscious victim not heinous); Herzog v. State, 439 So. 2d 1372 (1983) (same). We must presume the trial judge to have been familiar with this body of case law, see Walton, 497 U. S., at 653, which, at a minimum, gave the trial judge "[some] guidance," id., at 654. Since the Eighth Amendment requires no more, we infer no error merely from the fact that the trial judge weighed the heinousness factor. While Sochor responds that the State Supreme Court's interpretation of the heinousness factor has left Florida trial judges without sufficient guidance in other factual situations, we fail to see how that supports the conclusion that the trial judge was without sufficient guidance in the case at hand. See generally Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U. S., at 361-364.
537
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