OCTOBER TERM, 1992
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit
No. 91-7580. Argued October 14, 1992—Decided January 25, 1993
Petitioner Graham's capital murder conviction and death sentence became final in 1984. After unsuccessfully seeking postconviction relief in the Texas state courts, he filed this habeas corpus action in Federal District Court, alleging, inter alia, that the three "special issues" his sentencing jury was required to answer under the state capital sentencing statute then in existence prevented the jury from giving effect, consistent with the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, to mitigating evidence of his youth, unstable family background, and positive character traits. In affirming the District Court's denial of relief, the Court of Appeals reviewed this Court's holdings on the constitutional requirement that a sentencer be permitted to consider and act upon any relevant mitigating evidence put forth by a capital defendant, and then ruled that Graham's jury could give adequate mitigating effect to the evidence in question by way of answering the special issues.
Held: Graham's claim is barred because the relief he seeks would require announcement of a new rule of constitutional law, in contravention of the principles set forth in Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288, 301 (plurality opinion). Pp. 466-478. (a) A holding that was not "dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final" constitutes a "new rule," 489 U. S., at 301, which, absent the applicability of one of two exceptions, cannot be applied or announced in a case on collateral review, Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 313. Thus, the determinative question is whether reasonable jurists hearing Graham's claim in 1984 "would have felt compelled by existing precedent" to rule in his favor. See Saffle v. Parks, 494 U. S. 484, 488. Pp. 466-467. (b) It cannot be said that reasonable jurists hearing Graham's claim in 1984 would have felt that existing precedent "dictated" vacatur of his death sentence within Teague's meaning. To the contrary, the joint opinion of Justices Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, in Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262, 270-276, could reasonably be read as having upheld the constitutionality of the very statutory scheme under which Graham was sentenced, including the so-called "special issues," only after being satis-
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