464
Syllabus
(b) The Osborn construction is sufficiently "clear and objective." In ordinary usage, the phrase "cold-blooded, pitiless slayer" refers to a killer who kills without feeling or sympathy. Thus, the phrase describes the defendant's state of mind: not his mens rea, but his attitude toward his conduct and his victim. The law has long recognized that such state of mind is not a "subjective" matter, but a fact to be inferred from the surrounding circumstances. Although determining whether a capital defendant killed without feeling or sympathy may be difficult, that does not mean that a State cannot, consistent with the Constitution, authorize sentencing judges to make the inquiry and to take their findings into account when deciding whether capital punishment is warranted. Cf. Walton, supra, at 655. Pp. 471-474. (c) Although the question is close, the Osborn construction satisfies the requirement that a State's capital sentencing scheme "genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty." Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862, 877. The class of persons so eligible under Idaho law is defined broadly to include all first-degree murderers, a category which is itself broad because it includes a sizable number of second-degree murderers under specified circumstances. Even within these broad definitions, the word "pitiless," standing alone, might not narrow the class of death eligible defendants, since a sentencing judge might conclude that every first-degree murderer is "pitiless." Given the statutory scheme, however, a sentencing judge reasonably could find that not all Idaho capital defendants are "cold-blooded," since some within the broad class of first-degree murderers do exhibit feeling, for example, anger, jealousy, or revenge. Pp. 474-476. (d) This Court rejects the suggestion of the parties and the dissent that the facial constitutionality of the "utter disregard" circumstance, as construed in Osborn, should be determined by examining for consistency the applications of the circumstance by the state courts in other cases. Although the Court's facial challenge precedents authorize a federal court to consider state court formulations of a limiting construction to ensure that they are consistent, see, e. g., Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U. S. 242, 255, n. 12, those precedents have not authorized review of state court cases to determine whether a limiting construction has been applied consistently. A comparative analysis of state court cases, moreover, would be particularly inappropriate here. None of the cases on which Creech or the dissent relies influenced either his trial judge or the Idaho Supreme Court, which upheld his death sentence before it had applied Osborn to any other set of facts, and thereafter has repeatedly reaffirmed its Osborn interpretation. Pp. 476-478. 2. The Court decides only the foregoing question. The Court of Appeals had no occasion to reach the Jeffers issue—whether the state
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