Cite as: 509 U. S. 350 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
interpretation of some constitutional command. See, e. g., Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U. S. 254, 265-266 (1986); Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203, 212 (1984).
There is no dispute that a defendant's youth is a relevant mitigating circumstance that must be within the effective reach of a capital sentencing jury if a death sentence is to meet the requirements of Lockett and Eddings. See, e. g., Sumner v. Shuman, 483 U. S. 66, 81-82 (1987); Eddings, 455 U. S., at 115; Lockett, 438 U. S., at 608 (plurality opinion). Our cases recognize that "youth is more than a chronological fact. It is a time and condition of life when a person may be most susceptible to influence and to psychological damage." Eddings, supra, at 115. A lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility are found in youth more often than in adults and are more understandable among the young. These qualities often result in impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions. A sentencer in a capital case must be allowed to consider the mitigating qualities of youth in the course of its deliberations over the appropriate sentence.
The question presented here is whether the Texas special issues allowed adequate consideration of petitioner's youth. An argument that youth can never be given proper mitigating force under the Texas scheme is inconsistent with our holdings in Jurek, Graham, and Penry itself. The standard against which we assess whether jury instructions satisfy the rule of Lockett and Eddings was set forth in Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370 (1990). There we held that a reviewing court must determine "whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury has applied the challenged instruction in a way that prevents the consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence." Id., at 380. Although the reasonable likelihood standard does not require that the defendant prove that it was more likely than not that the jury was prevented from giving effect to the evidence, the standard requires more than a mere possibility of such a bar.
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