16
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
cutor told the jury: " '[Y]our [sentencing] decision is not the final decision' "; " 'the decision you render is automatically reviewable by the [State] Supreme Court.' " Id., at 325-326. Responding to the issue presented in Caldwell, this Court observed that capital sentencing jurors, required to determine "whether a specific human being should die at the hands of the State," id., at 329, are "placed in a very unfamiliar situation and called on to make a very difficult and uncomfortable choice," id., at 333. Such jurors, the Court noted, might find "highly attractive" the prosecutor's suggestion that persons other than themselves would bear "responsibility for any ultimate determination of death." Id., at 332-333.
The possibility the jury might have embraced the prosecutor's suggestion, the Court concluded, rendered the imposition of the death penalty inconsistent with the Constitution's requirement of individualized and reliable capital sentencing procedures. See id., at 323, 329-330, 340-341. Emphasizing the " 'truly awesome responsibility' " imposed upon capital sentencing juries, id., at 329, quoting McGautha v. California, 402 U. S. 183, 208 (1971), the Court held:
"[I]t is constitutionally impermissible to rest a death sentence on a determination made by a sentencer who has been led to believe that the responsibility for determining the appropriateness of the defendant's death rests elsewhere." 472 U. S., at 328-329.
In my view, this principle, reiterated throughout the Court's Caldwell opinion,1 covers the present case: The jury's
1 See 472 U. S., at 323 (sentence constitutionally invalid, because unreliable, if "the sentencing jury is led to believe that responsibility for determining the appropriateness of a death sentence rests not with the jury but with the appellate court which later reviews the case"); id., at 333 ("[T]he uncorrected suggestion that the responsibility for any ultimate determination of death will rest with others presents an intolerable danger that the jury will in fact choose to minimize the importance of its role."); id., at 341 (because the State's effort "to minimize the jury's sense
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