48
Opinion of the Court
strued thus by the Supreme Court of Arizona. See, e. g., State v. Brewer, 170 Ariz. 486, 504, 826 P. 2d 783, 801, cert. denied, post, p. 872; State v. Gretzler, 135 Ariz., at 54-55, 659 P. 2d, at 13-14; State v. Valencia, 132 Ariz. 248, 250, 645 P. 2d 239, 241 (1982); State v. Brookover, 124 Ariz. 38, 42, 601 P. 2d 1322, 1326 (1979). Nor do respondents contend that the (F)(6) factor had no effect on the sentencing judge's calculus and therefore was harmless.
Rather, they point to State v. Gretzler, supra, which issued subsequent to the resentencing but prior to Richmond II, and which provided an adequate narrowing construction of the "especially heinous, cruel or depraved" factor. See Lewis v. Jeffers, supra, at 777-778 (holding that Gretzler definitions adequately narrowed (F)(6) factor); Walton v. Arizona, supra, at 652-655 (same). Respondents assert that the principal opinion in Richmond II properly applied the Gretzler construction of the (F)(6) factor, while the concurrence ignored the factor, and that both opinions reweighed. Petitioner argues that the principal opinion improperly applied Gretzler, and that the concurrence did not reweigh.
We agree with petitioner that the concurrence in Richmond II did not reweigh. Our prior cases do not specify the degree of clarity with which a state appellate court must reweigh in order to cure an otherwise invalid death sentence, see Clemons v. Mississippi, supra, at 750-752; cf. Sochor v. Florida, 504 U. S. 527, 540 (1992) (discussing clarity of state appellate court's harmless-error analysis); Stringer v. Black, 503 U. S., at 229-232 (same), and we need not do so here. At a minimum, we must determine that the state court actually reweighed. "[W]hen the sentencing body is told to weigh an invalid factor in its decision, a reviewing court may not assume it would have made no difference if the thumb had been removed from death's side of the scale," id., at 232, nor can a court "cure" the error without deciding, itself, that the valid aggravating factors are weightier than the mitigating factors. "[O]nly constitutional harmless-error analysis or
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