2
Syllabus
veyed or intimated that the jury could shift its responsibility in sentencing. Pp. 6-10. (b) Although the evidence in question may have been irrelevant, the jury's consideration of it did not render the sentencing proceeding so unreliable that it violated the Eighth Amendment under Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586, 604 (plurality opinion), and Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 305. That the evidence may have been irrelevant as a matter of state law does not render its admission federal constitutional error. See Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U. S. 62, 67. Dawson v. Delaware, 503 U. S. 159, 167, and Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862, 885, are plainly inapposite, since petitioner does not argue that admission of the evidence allowed the jury to consider, in aggravation, constitutionally protected conduct. Johnson v. Mississippi, 486 U. S. 578, 586, 590, n. 8, is also inapposite, since it is perfectly consistent with the Court of Criminal Appeals' approach and does not stand for the proposition that the mere admission of irrelevant and prejudicial evidence requires the overturning of a death sentence. This Court declines petitioner's request to fashion a federal code of general evidentiary rules, under the guise of interpreting the Eighth Amendment, which would supersede state rules in capital sentencing proceedings. Pp. 10-12. (c) Introduction of the evidence in question did not so infect the trial with unfairness as to render the jury's imposition of the death penalty a denial of due process under the analytical framework set forth in Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U. S. 637, 643. Presuming that the trial court's instructions were followed, they did not offer the jurors any means by which to give effect to the irrelevant evidence of petitioner's prior sentence, and the relevant evidence presented by the State was sufficient to justify the imposition of the death sentence in this case. Even assuming that the jury disregarded its instructions and allowed the irrelevant evidence to influence its decision, a finding of fundamental unfairness on the basis of this record would be an exercise in speculation, rather than reasoned judgment, since it seems equally plausible that the evidence in question could have influenced the jurors either to impose, or not to impose, the death sentence. Pp. 12-14.
847 P. 2d 368, affirmed.
Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined. O Connor, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 14. Blackmun, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 15. Ginsburg, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Blackmun, Stevens, and Souter, JJ., joined, post, p. 15.
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