14
Scalia, J., concurring
We may assume, as the Virginia Supreme Court and Court of Appeals found, that petitioner's psychiatric evidence would not have influenced the jury's determination concerning vileness. Nevertheless, the absence of such evidence may well have affected the jury's ultimate decision, based on all of the evidence before it, to sentence petitioner to death rather than life imprisonment.
Although our holding in Zant supports the conclusion that the invalidation of one aggravator does not necessarily require that a death sentence be set aside, that holding does not support the quite different proposition that the existence of a valid aggravator always excuses a constitutional error in the admission or exclusion of evidence. The latter circumstance is more akin to the situation in Johnson v. Mississippi, 486 U. S. 578 (1988), in which we held that Zant does not apply to support a death sentence imposed by a jury that was allowed to consider materially inaccurate evidence, 486 U. S., at 590, than to Zant itself. Because the Court of Appeals misapplied Zant in this case, its judgment must be vacated.
III
Having found no need to remedy the Ake error in petitioner's sentencing, the Virginia Supreme Court did not consider whether, or by what procedures, the sentence might be sustained or reimposed; and neither the state court nor the Court of Appeals addressed whether harmless-error analysis is applicable to this case. Because this Court customarily does not address such an issue in the first instance, we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Justice Scalia, concurring.
This is a simple case and should be simply resolved. The jury that deliberated on petitioner's sentence had before it
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007