984
Blackmun, J., dissenting
mitigating or aggravating is also constitutionally permissible. Indeed, as I have indicated, I think the identification of additional factors that are relevant to the sentencing decision reduces the danger that a juror may vote in favor of the death penalty because he or she harbors a prejudice against a class of which the defendant is a member.
Accordingly, given the assumption (unchallenged by these petitioners) that California has a statutory "scheme" that complies with the narrowing requirement defined in Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U. S., at 244, I conclude that the sentencing factors at issue in these cases are consistent with the defendant's constitutional entitlement to an individualized "determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific case." Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 305 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.).
Justice Blackmun, dissenting.
Adhering to my view that the death penalty cannot be imposed fairly within the constraints of our Constitution, see Callins v. Collins, 510 U. S. 1141, 1143 (1994), I would vacate petitioners' death sentences. Even if I did not hold this view, I would find that the three challenged factors do not withstand a meaningful vagueness analysis because "as a practical matter [they] fail to guide the sentencer's discretion." Stringer v. Black, 503 U. S. 222, 235 (1992).
I
A
The California capital punishment scheme does more than simply direct the sentencing jurors' attention to certain subject matters. It lists 11 factors and authorizes the jury to treat any of them as aggravating circumstances to be placed on death's side of the scale. Jurors are instructed that they "shall impose a death sentence if [they] conclud[e] that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances." Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 190.3 (West 1988). De-
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