Cite as: 506 U. S. 461 (1993)
Souter, J., dissenting
The Court's conclusion to the contrary rests on the assumption that an additional instruction is required under Penry only where there is mitigating evidence without any "mitigating relevance" to the second, future dangerousness special issue. See ante, at 475. But that was not the holding of Penry, which reiterates the Eighth Amendment requirement expressed in Lockett and Eddings that the jury be able "to consider fully [the defendant's] mitigating evidence," Penry, 492 U. S., at 323, and requires a separate instruction whenever such evidence "has relevance to . . . moral culpability beyond the scope of the special issues," id., at 322. Indeed, Justice Scalia's dissent in Penry recognized that "[w]hat the Court means by 'fully consider' (what it must mean to distinguish Jurek) is to consider for all purposes, including purposes not specifically permitted by the questions." Id., at 355 (opinion dissenting in relevant part) (emphasis in original). That dissent argued that this was not what was required by the Constitution, see id., at 358-360,4 but it correctly described the holding in the Court's opinion in Penry itself. Nothing in Penry aside from Justice Scalia's dissent, and nothing in the controlling opinions in Lockett or Eddings, suggested that this Eighth Amendment requirement will be obviated by the happenstance that a defendant's particular mitigating evidence is relevant to one of the special issues, even though it may have mitigating force beyond the scope of that issue.
Penry plainly answered the Teague question that the majority answers differently today, a question that even re-gating weight under the special issues. See Brief for Petitioner 15, and n. 12. Thus, respondent's Teague argument has no application to this case.
4 See also Penry, 492 U. S., at 356 (Scalia, J., dissenting in part) (arguing, contrary to the holding of the Court, that after Jurek "there remains available, in an as-applied challenge to the Texas statute," only "the contention that a particular mitigating circumstance is in fact irrelevant to any of the three questions it poses, and hence could not be considered").
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