Cite as: 506 U. S. 40 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
reweighing at the trial or appellate level suffices to guarantee that the defendant received an individualized sentence." Ibid. Where the death sentence has been infected by a vague or otherwise constitutionally invalid aggravating factor, the state appellate court or some other state sentencer must actually perform a new sentencing calculus, if the sentence is to stand.
The concurring justices in Richmond II did not purport to perform such a calculus, or even mention the evidence in mitigation. Respondents suggest that we presume re-weighing, both because the justices of the Supreme Court of Arizona have an obligation to reweigh as part of their "independent review" of death sentences, and because Justices Cameron and Gordon concurred in the portion of the principal opinion that articulated this obligation. Although there is some force to this suggestion, any presumption of reweighing is overcome by the language of the concurrence itself. After arguing that petitioner's offense did not satisfy the (F)(6) factor, the concurrence offered this brief explanation why a death sentence was justified nonetheless.
"The criminal record of this defendant, however, clearly places him above the norm of first degree murderers. He has been convicted of another first degree murder and a kidnapping, each arising in separate incidents. This history of serious violent crime justifies the imposition of the death penalty." Richmond II, 136 Ariz., at 323-324, 666 P. 2d, at 68-69.
The plain meaning of this passage is that petitioner's aggravated background provided a conclusive justification for the death penalty. The passage plainly evinces the sort of automatic affirmance rule proscribed in a "weighing" State—"a rule authorizing or requiring affirmance of a death sentence so long as there remains at least one valid aggravating circumstance." Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U. S., at 751.
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