Cite as: 506 U. S. 461 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
that because the constitutionality of a capital sentencing system also requires the sentencing authority to consider mitigating circumstances and since the Texas statute did not speak of mitigating circumstances and instead directs only that the jury answer three questions, "the constitutionality of the Texas procedures turns on whether the enumerated questions allow consideration of particularized mitigating factors." Id., at 272.
The joint opinion then recognized that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had held:
" 'In determining the likelihood that the defendant would be a continuing threat to society, the jury could consider whether the defendant had a significant criminal record. It could consider the range and severity of his prior criminal conduct. It could further look to the age of the defendant and whether or not at the time of the commission of the offense he was acting under duress or under the domination of another. It could also consider whether the defendant was under an extreme form of mental or emotional pressure, something less, perhaps, than insanity, but more than the emotions of the average man, however inflamed, could withstand.' 522 S. W. 2d, at 939-940." Id., at 272-273.
Based on this assurance, the opinion characterized the Texas sentencing procedure as follows:
"Thus, Texas law essentially requires that one of five aggravating circumstances be found before a defendant can be found guilty of capital murder, and that in considering whether to impose a death sentence the jury may be asked to consider whatever evidence of mitigating circumstances the defense can bring before it. It thus appears that, as in Georgia and Florida, the Texas capital-sentencing procedure guides and focuses the jury's objective consideration of the particularized circumstances of the individual offense and the individual
469
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