8
Opinion of the Court
in Georgia). As we observed in California v. Ramos, 463 U. S. 992, 999 (1983):
"In ensuring that the death penalty is not meted out arbitrarily or capriciously, the Court's principal concern has been more with the procedure by which the State imposes the death sentence than with the substantive factors the State lays before the jury as a basis for imposing death, once it has been determined that the defendant falls within the category of persons eligible for the death penalty."
See also id., at 1008 ("Once the jury finds that the defendant falls within the legislatively defined category of persons eligible for the death penalty . . . the jury then is free to consider a myriad of factors to determine whether death is the appropriate punishment").
We have also held, in Caldwell v. Mississippi, that the jury must not be misled regarding the role it plays in the sentencing decision. See 472 U. S., at 336 (plurality opinion); id., at 341-342 (O Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). The prosecutor in Caldwell, in remarks which "were quite focused, unambiguous, and strong," misled the jury to believe that the responsibility for sentencing the defendant lay elsewhere. Id., at 340. The trial judge "not only failed to correct the prosecutor's remarks, but in fact openly agreed with them." Id., at 339.
The plurality concluded that the prosecutor's remarks, along with the trial judge's affirmation, impermissibly "minimize[d] the jury's sense of responsibility for determining the appropriateness of death." Id., at 341. Such a diminution, the plurality felt, precluded the jury from properly performing its responsibility to make an individualized determination of the appropriateness of the death penalty. Id., at 330- 331. Justice O Connor, in her opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, identified more narrowly the infirmity in the prosecutor's remarks: "In my view, the
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