Sochor v. Florida, 504 U.S. 527, 28 (1992)

Page:   Index   Previous  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28

554

SOCHOR v. FLORIDA

Opinion of Scalia, J.

plied with the so-called "narrowing" requirement imposed by the line of cases commencing with Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972). The constitutional "error" whose harmlessness is at issue, then, concerns only the inclusion of the "coldness" factor in the weighing of the aggravating factors against the mitigating evidence petitioner offered. It has been my view that the Eighth Amendment does not require any consideration of mitigating evidence, see Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S. 639, 656 (1990) (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment)—a view I am increasingly confirmed in, as the byzantine complexity of the death penalty jurisprudence we are annually accreting becomes more and more apparent. Since the weighing here was in my view not constitutionally required, any error in the doing of it raised no federal question. For that reason, I would affirm the death sentence.

Page:   Index   Previous  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28

Last modified: October 4, 2007