486
Thomas, J., concurring
Justices Stewart, Powell, and Stevens applied these principles in upholding the guided discretion procedures of Georgia, Florida, and Texas, and in striking down the mandatory death penalty provisions of North Carolina and Louisiana. The Georgia, Florida, and Texas schemes were held constitutional because they "guide[d] and focuse[d] the jury's objective consideration of the particularized circumstances of the individual offense and the individual offender." Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262, 273-274 (1976) ( joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.). The "essential" factor was that "the jury ha[d] before it all possible relevant information about the individual defendant whose fate it must determine." Id., at 276. Moreover, the Georgia statute featured "an important additional safeguard against arbitrariness and caprice": a provision for automatic appeal of a death sentence that required the State Supreme Court to determine, inter alia, whether the sentence was imposed under the influence of passion or prejudice and whether it was disproportionate to other sentences imposed in similar cases. Gregg, supra, at 198.
The mandatory death penalty statutes, on the other hand, were held to violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments for three reasons. First, the Justices believed, a mandatory death penalty departed from "contemporary standards" of punishment. Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 301 (1976) (plurality opinion). Second, experience had suggested that such statutes "simply papered over the problem of unguided and unchecked jury discretion" by provoking arbitrary jury nullification. Id., at 302-303. Thus, "[i]nstead of rationalizing the sentencing process, a mandatory scheme may well exacerbate the problem identified in Furman by resting the penalty determination on the particular jury's willingness to act lawlessly." Id., at 303; see Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U. S. 325, 335 (1976) (plurality opinion). Third, the mandatory nature of the penalty prevented the sentencer from considering "the character and record of the individual
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