986
Blackmun, J., dissenting
The more relevant distinction is not how an aggravating factor is presented, but what the sentencer is told to do with it. Where, as in Georgia, "aggravating factors as such have no specific function in the jury's decision whether a defendant who has been found to be eligible for the death penalty should receive it under all the circumstances of the case," Stringer, 503 U. S., at 229-230, we have not subjected aggravating circumstances to a vagueness analysis. See Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862, 873-874 (1983). In California, by contrast, where the sentencer is instructed to weigh the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, a vague aggravator creates the risk of an arbitrary thumb on death's side of the scale, so we analyze aggravators for clarity, objectivity, and principled guidance. See Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U. S. 356 (1988); Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U. S. 420 (1980); see also Pensinger v. California, 502 U. S. 930, 931 (1991) (O'Connor, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari) (observing that California, like Mississippi, "requires its juries to weigh aggravating and mitigating circumstances"); Stringer, 503 U. S., at 231 (difference between "nonweighing" States like Georgia and "weighing" States like California is "not one of 'semantics' ") (citation omitted).
Each of the challenged California factors "leave[s] the sentencer without sufficient guidance for determining the presence or absence of the factor." Espinosa v. Florida, 505 U. S. 1079, 1081 (1992). Each of the three—circumstances of the crime, age, and prior criminal activity—has been exploited to convince jurors that just about anything is aggravating.
Prosecutors have argued, and jurors are free to find, that "circumstances of the crime" constitutes an aggravating factor because the defendant killed the victim for some purport-eligible); Sochor v. Florida, 504 U. S. 527 (1992) (same); Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S. 639 (1990) (same). The Court recognizes as much by subjecting the challenged factors to a vagueness analysis.
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