Cite as: 504 U. S. 719 (1992)
Scalia, J., dissenting
III
Even if I agreed with the Court, however, that jurors who will always advocate a death sentence for capital murder are not "impartial" and must be excused for cause, I would not agree with the further conclusion that the Constitution requires a trial court to make specific inquiries on this subject during voir dire.
In Mu'Min v. Virginia, 500 U. S. 415 (1991), we surveyed our cases concerning the requirements of voir dire and concluded that, except where interracial capital crimes are at issue, trial courts "retai[n] great latitude in deciding what questions should be asked on voir dire," id., at 424; see also Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U. S. 589, 594 (1976). We emphasized that our authority to require specific inquiries on voir dire is particularly narrow with respect to state-court trials, where we may not exercise supervisory authority and are "limited to enforcing the commands of the United States Constitution," Mu'Min, 500 U. S., at 422. We concluded, as a general matter, that a defendant was entitled to specific questions only if the failure to ask them would render his trial "fundamentally unfair," id., at 426. Thus, we have held that absent some "special circumstance," Turner, supra, at 37, a "generalized but thorough inquiry into the impartiality of the veniremen" is a constitutionally adequate voir dire. Ristaino, supra, at 598. Finally, we have long acknowledged that, in light of the credibility determinations involved, a trial court's finding that a particular juror is impartial may "be overturned only for 'manifest error,' " Patton v. Yount, 467 U. S. 1025, 1031 (1984) (quoting Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717, 723 (1961)); see also Mu'Min, supra, at 428.
Were the Court today extending Witherspoon's jury-balancing rule so as to require affirmatively that a capital sentencing jury contain a mix of views on the death penalty, that requirement would of course constitute a "special circumstance" necessitating specific inquiry into the subject on voir dire. But that is not what petitioner has sought, and it
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