Cite as: 517 U. S. 559 (1996)
Scalia, J., dissenting
"unfairness"—neither the unfairness of an excessive civil compensatory award, nor the unfairness of an "unreasonable" punitive award. What the Fourteenth Amendment's procedural guarantee assures is an opportunity to contest the reasonableness of a damages judgment in state court; but there is no federal guarantee a damages award actually be reasonable. See TXO, supra, at 471 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment).
This view, which adheres to the text of the Due Process Clause, has not prevailed in our punitive damages cases. See TXO, 509 U. S., at 453-462 (plurality opinion); id., at 478- 481 (O'Connor, J., dissenting); Haslip, supra, at 18. When, however, a constitutional doctrine adopted by the Court is not only mistaken but also insusceptible of principled application, I do not feel bound to give it stare decisis effect— indeed, I do not feel justified in doing so. See, e. g., Witte v. United States, 515 U. S. 389, 406 (1995) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment); Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S. 639, 673 (1990) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). Our punitive damages jurisprudence compels such a response. The Constitution provides no warrant for federalizing yet another aspect of our Nation's legal culture (no matter how much in need of correction it may be), and the application of the Court's new rule of constitutional law is constrained by no principle other than the Justices' subjective assessment of the "reasonableness" of the award in relation to the conduct for which it was assessed.
Because today's judgment represents the first instance of this Court's invalidation of a state-court punitive assessment as simply unreasonably large, I think it a proper occasion to discuss these points at some length.
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The most significant aspects of today's decision—the identification of a "substantive due process" right against a "grossly excessive" award, and the concomitant assumption
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