736
Opinion of the Court
to ascertain whether his prospective jurors function under such misconception. The risk that such jurors may have been empaneled in this case and "infected petitioner's capital sentencing [is] unacceptable in light of the ease with which that risk could have been minimized." Id., at 36 (footnote omitted). Petitioner was entitled, upon his request, to inquiry discerning those jurors who, even prior to the State's case in chief, had predetermined the terminating issue of his trial, that being whether to impose the death penalty.
III
Justice Scalia, in dissent, insists that Illinois is entitled to try a death penalty case with 1 or even 12 jurors who upon inquiry announce that they would automatically vote to impose the death penalty if the defendant is found guilty of a capital offense, no matter what the so-called mitigating factors, whether statutory or nonstatutory, might be. Post, at 742-746. But such jurors obviously deem mitigating evidence to be irrelevant to their decision to impose the death penalty: They not only refuse to give such evidence any weight but are also plainly saying that mitigating evidence is not worth their consideration and that they will not consider it. While Justice Scalia's jaundiced view of our decision today may best be explained by his rejection of the line of cases tracing from Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280 (1976), and Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586 (1978), and developing the nature and role of mitigating evidence in the trial of capital offenses, see Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S. 639, 669-673 (1990) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 833 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring); Sochor v. Florida, ante, at 554 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), it is a view long rejected by this Court. More important to our purposes here, however, his view finds no support in either the statutory or decisional law of Illinois because that law is consistent with the requirements concerning mitigating evi-
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