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Opinion of the Court
in judgment); see also Graham, 506 U. S., at 475; Saffle v. Parks, 494 U. S. 484, 490-491 (1990).
Although Lockett and Eddings prevent a State from placing relevant mitigating evidence "beyond the effective reach of the sentencer," Graham, supra, at 475, those cases and others in that decisional line do not bar a State from guiding the sentencer's consideration of mitigating evidence. Indeed, we have held that "there is no . . . constitutional requirement of unfettered sentencing discretion in the jury, and States are free to structure and shape consideration of mitigating evidence 'in an effort to achieve a more rational and equitable administration of the death penalty,' " Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370, 377 (1990) (quoting Franklin v. Lynaugh, 487 U. S. 164, 181 (1988) (plurality opinion)); see also Saffle, supra, at 490.
B
The Texas law under which petitioner was sentenced has been the principal concern of four previous opinions in our Court. See Jurek v. Texas, supra; Franklin v. Lynaugh, supra; Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302 (1989); Graham, supra. As we have mentioned, Jurek was included in the group of five cases addressing the post-Furman statutes in 1976.
In Jurek, the joint opinion of Justices Stewart, Powell, and Stevens first noted that there was no constitutional deficiency in the means used to narrow the group of offenders subject to capital punishment, the statute having adopted five different classifications of murder for that purpose. See Jurek, 428 U. S., at 270-271. Turning to the mitigation side of the sentencing system, the three Justices said: "[T]he constitutionality of the Texas procedures turns on whether the enumerated [special issues] allow consideration of particularized mitigating factors." Id., at 272. In assessing the constitutionality of the mitigation side of this scheme, the three Justices examined in detail only the second special issue, which asks whether " 'there is a probability that the defend-
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