Cite as: 504 U. S. 719 (1992)
Scalia, J., dissenting
First, the Court states that general questions would be insufficient because "such jurors could in all truth and candor respond affirmatively, personally confident that such dogmatic views are fair and impartial . . . ." Ante, at 735. In other words, jurors who would always impose the death penalty would be violating the instructions without realizing that that is what they are doing. It seems to me quite obvious that solution of this problem does not require a specific question of each juror, but can be achieved by simply changing the instructions so that these well-intentioned jurors will understand that an aggravators-always-outweigh-mitigators view is prohibited. The record does not reflect that petitioner made any objection to the clarity of the instructions in this regard.
Second, the Court asserts that the adequacy of general voir dire questions is belied by "[t]he State's own request for questioning under Witherspoon and Witt." Ante, at 734. Without such questioning, we are told, "Witherspoon and its succeeding cases would be in large measure superfluous." Ibid. But Witherspoon did not, as this reasoning assumes, give the State a right to exclude jurors ("[I]t is clear beyond peradventure that Witherspoon is not a ground for challenging any prospective juror," Adams, 448 U. S., at 47-48), and it is therefore quite impossible that anything we say on that subject today could render the holding of Witherspoon "superfluous." What the Court describes, ante, at 733, as a "very short step" from Witherspoon, Adams, and Witt, is in fact a great leap over an unbridgeable chasm of logic. Witherspoon and succeeding cases held that the State was not constitutionally prevented from excluding jurors who would on no facts impose death; from which the Court today concludes that a State is constitutionally compelled to exclude jurors who would, on the facts establishing the particular aggravated murder, invariably impose death. The Court's argument that because the Constitution requires one it must re-
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