382
O'Connor, J., dissenting
"First, there is a required threshold below which the death penalty cannot be imposed. In this context, the State must establish rational criteria that narrow the decisionmaker's judgment as to whether the circumstances of a particular defendant's case meet the threshold. . . . Second, States cannot limit the sentencer's consideration of any relevant circumstance that could cause it to decline to impose the penalty. In this respect, the State cannot channel the sentencer's discretion, but must allow it to consider any relevant information offered by the defendant." Id., at 305-306 (emphases added).
We have adhered to this "constitutionally permissible range of discretion" again and again in the years since we decided McCleskey, most recently in McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U. S. 433 (1990). Accord, Hitchcock v. Dugger, 481 U. S. 393, 398-399 (1987); Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 319-328 (1989). The Court attempts to limit these cases by relying on plurality opinions, concurrences, and dicta, see, e. g., ante, at 361-362, but until today a majority of this Court has declined to upset our settled Eighth Amendment jurisprudence.
B
Despite the long line of precedent supporting Johnson's argument that the State impermissibly limited the effect that could be given to his youth, the Court, like respondent and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, clings doggedly to Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262 (1976) ( joint opinion). The interpretation on which the Court today relies, however, has nothing to do with what the Court actually decided in Jurek. Jurek was one of five cases in which this Court evaluated the States' attempts after Furman to enact constitutional death penalty statutes. The statutes at issue had been applied a limited number of times, and, of necessity, the challenges were all facial. The Texas Court of Criminal
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