Cite as: 512 U. S. 154 (1994)
O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment
not read Justice Blackmun's opinion to say otherwise.* And I note that the trial court here not only refused to instruct the jury that in this case life means "life without parole"; the court also ordered petitioner's counsel to refrain from saying anything to the jury about parole ineligibility. App. 55-57.
On these understandings, I concur in Justice Black-mun's opinion.
Justice O'Connor, with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Kennedy join, concurring in the judgment.
"Capital sentencing proceedings must of course satisfy the dictates of the Due Process Clause," Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U. S. 738, 746 (1990), and one of the hallmarks of due process in our adversary system is the defendant's ability to meet the State's case against him. Cf. Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 683, 690 (1986). In capital cases, we have held that the defendant's future dangerousness is a consideration on which the State may rely in seeking the death penalty. See California v. Ramos, 463 U. S. 992, 1002-1003 (1983). But "[w]here the prosecution specifically relies on a prediction of future dangerousness in asking for the death penalty, . . . the elemental due process requirement that a defendant not be sentenced to death 'on the basis of information which he had no opportunity to deny or explain' [requires that the defendant be afforded an opportunity to introduce evidence on this point]." Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U. S. 1, 5, n. 1 (1986), quoting Gardner v. Florida, 430 U. S. 349, 362 (1977) (plurality opinion); see also 476 U. S., at 9-10 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment).
In this case, petitioner physically and sexually assaulted three elderly women—one of them his own grandmother— before killing a fourth. At the capital sentencing proceed-*Compare ante, at 162, n. 4 (refraining from addressing Simmons' Eighth Amendment claim), with ante, at 173-174 (Souter, J., concurring) (Eighth Amendment requires judge to instruct jury about parole ineligibility).
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