432
Blackmun, J., dissenting
purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering." Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S., at 592.2
The protection of the Eighth Amendment does not end once a defendant has been validly convicted and sentenced. In Johnson v. Mississippi, 486 U. S. 578 (1988), the petitioner had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death on the basis of three aggravating circumstances. One of those circumstances was that he previously had been convicted of a violent felony in the State of New York. After Johnson had been sentenced to death, the New York Court of Appeals reversed his prior conviction. Although there was no question that the prior conviction was valid at the time of Johnson's sentencing, this Court held that the Eighth Amendment required review of the sentence because "the jury was allowed to consider evidence that has been revealed to be materially inaccurate." Id., at 590.3 In Ford v. Wainwright, the petitioner had been convicted of murder and sen-2 It also may violate the Eighth Amendment to imprison someone who is actually innocent. See Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660, 667 (1962) ("Even one day in prison would be a cruel and unusual punishment for the 'crime' of having a common cold"). On the other hand, this Court has noted that " 'death is a different kind of punishment from any other which may be imposed in this country. . . . From the point of view of the defendant, it is different in both its severity and its finality.' " Beck v. Alabama, 447 U. S. 625, 637 (1980), quoting Gardner v. Florida, 430 U. S. 349, 357 (1977) (opinion of Stevens, J.). We are not asked to decide in this case whether petitioner's continued imprisonment would violate the Constitution if he actually is innocent, see Brief for Petitioner 39, n. 52; Tr. of Oral Arg. 3-5, and I do not address that question.
3 The majority attempts to distinguish Johnson on the ground that Mississippi previously had considered claims like Johnson's by writ of error coram nobis. Ante, at 406-407. We considered Mississippi's past practice in entertaining such claims, however, to determine not whether an Eighth Amendment violation had occurred but whether there was an independent and adequate state ground preventing us from reaching the merits of Johnson's claim. See 486 U. S., at 587-589. Respondent does not argue that there is any independent and adequate state ground that would prevent us from reaching the merits in this case.
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