Cite as: 507 U. S. 272 (1993)
Per Curiam
relief. Lashley v. Armontrout, 957 F. 2d 1495 (1992). The Court of Appeals thought that the trial judge's ruling violated the Eighth Amendment under Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586 (1978). In the majority's view, "Lockett requires the State—which is in a peculiarly advantageous position to show a significant prior criminal history, if indeed Lashley has such a history—to come forward with evidence, or else the court must tell the jury it may consider the requested mitigating circumstance." 957 F. 2d, at 1502. The court held that "the lack of any evidence whatever of Lashley's prior criminal activity entitled [him] to the requested instruction." Ibid.
As Judge Fagg explained in dissent, see id., at 1502-1504, the majority plainly misread our precedents. We have held that the sentencer must be allowed to consider in mitigation "any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death." Lockett, supra, at 604 (plurality opinion) (emphasis added). Accord, Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 317 (1989); Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U. S. 104, 110 (1982); see also Penry, supra, at 327 ("[S]o long as the class of murderers subject to capital punishment is narrowed, there is no constitutional infirmity in a procedure that allows a jury to recommend mercy based on the mitigating evidence introduced by a defendant" (emphasis added)). But we never have suggested that the Constitution requires a state trial court to instruct the jury on mitigating circumstances in the absence of any supporting evidence.
On the contrary, we have said that to comply with due process state courts need give jury instructions in capital cases only if the evidence so warrants. See Hopper v. Evans, 456 U. S. 605, 611 (1982). And, answering a question expressly reserved in Lockett, we recently made clear that a State may require the defendant " 'to bear the risk of non-persuasion as to the existence of mitigating circumstances.' "
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