Cite as: 520 U. S. 518 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
The opinion cited only a single case, Baldwin v. Alabama, 472 U. S. 372, 382 (1985), in support of its central conclusion that indirect weighing of an invalid aggravator "creates the same potential for arbitrariness" as direct weighing of an invalid aggravator. Espinosa, 505 U. S., at 1082. And it introduced that lone citation with a "cf."—an introductory signal which shows authority that supports the point in dictum or by analogy, not one that "controls" or "dictates" the result.
Baldwin itself contains further evidence that Espinosa set forth a new rule. Baldwin considered the constitutionality of Alabama's death sentencing scheme, in which the jury was required to "fix the punishment at death" if it found the defendant guilty of an aggravated offense, whereupon the trial court would conduct a sentencing hearing at which it would determine a sentence of death or of life imprisonment. 472 U. S., at 376. The defendant contended that because the jury's mandatory sentence would have been unconstitutional standing alone, see Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 288-305 (1976) (plurality opinion), it was impermissible for the trial court to consider that verdict in determining its own sentence. We did not reach that contention because we concluded that under Alabama law the jury's verdict formed no part of the trial judge's sentencing calculus. Id., at 382. We noted, however, on the page of the opinion that Espinosa cited, that the defendant's "argument conceivably might have merit if the judge actually were required to consider the jury's 'sentence' as a recommendation as to the sentence the jury believed would be appropriate, cf. Proffitt v. Flor-sentencing jury which fails to define the HAC aggravator violates the Eighth Amendment, and that the Florida sentencing judge must give great weight to the jury's recommendation) were among the "givens" from which any decision in Espinosa had to be derived, they assuredly were not "controlling authority" in the sense we obviously intend: that they compel the outcome in Espinosa. They do not answer the definitive question: whether the jury's advisory verdict taints the trial court's sentence, that is, whether indirect weighing of an invalid factor creates the same potential for arbitrariness as direct weighing.
529
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