Cite as: 518 U. S. 152 (1996)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
the Court of Appeals and remand the case for consideration of petitioner's misrepresentation claim in proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Stevens, dissenting.
Justice Ginsburg has cogently explained why well-settled law requires the reversal of the judgment of the Court of Appeals. I join her opinion with this additional observation. The evidence tending to support the proposition that petitioner committed the Sorrell murders was not even sufficient to support the filing of charges against him. Whatever limits due process places upon the introduction of evidence of unadjudicated conduct in capital cases, they surely were exceeded here. Given the "vital importance" that "any decision to impose the death sentence be, and appear to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion," the sentencing proceeding would have been fundamentally unfair even if the prosecutors had given defense counsel fair notice of their intent to offer this evidence. See Gardner v. Florida, 430 U. S. 349, 357-358 (1977) (opinion of Stevens, J.).
Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.
Basic to due process in criminal proceedings is the right to a full, fair, potentially effective opportunity to defend against the State's charges. Petitioner Gray was not accorded that fundamental right at the penalty phase of his trial for capital murder. I therefore conclude that no "new rule" is implicated in his petition for habeas corpus, and dissent from the Court's decision, which denies Gray the resentencing proceeding he seeks.
I
Petitioner Coleman Gray's murder trial began on Monday, December 2, 1985, in the city of Suffolk, Virginia. He was
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