Cite as: 520 U. S. 518 (1997)
Stevens, J., dissenting
1975 in Tedder v. State, 322 So. 2d 908, 910.2 Thus I agree with Chief Judge Tjoflat that our per curiam opinion in Espinosa amounted to "nothing more than an application of well-settled principles. . . . In declaring the Florida HAC instruction unconstitutional, the Court simply applied the law as announced initially in Godfrey and later reaffirmed in Maynard [v. Cartwright, 486 U. S. 356 (1988]). The Court's conclusion—that the invalid instruction may have tainted the jury's death penalty recommendation and the trial judge's sentence—merely acknowledged what the Supreme Court of Florida has been holding for years." Glock v. Singletary, 65 F. 3d 878, 896 (CA11 1995) (dissenting opinion) (footnotes omitted).3
Today the Court reaches the conclusion that Espinosa announced a new rule by placing a novel interpretation on its holding. The majority apparently construes Espinosa as holding that the constitutional error in the jury instruction will "automatically render a defendant's sentence unconstitutional." Ante, at 530.4 The Court suggests that our holdings in Godfrey, Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U. S. 356 (1988), and Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U. S. 738, 745 (1990)—that
2 These two "controlling precedents," both of which were cited in the Espinosa opinion, provided sufficient support for its holding. Thus the Court is simply mistaken when it asserts that "Espinosa itself did not purport to rely upon any controlling precedent." Ante, at 528.
3 Tedder, of course, was not an isolated decision. In Riley v. Wainwright, 517 So. 2d 656 (Fla. 1987), the State Supreme Court put the point succinctly: "If the jury's recommendation, upon which the judge must rely, results from an unconstitutional procedure, then the entire sentencing process necessarily is tainted by that procedure." Id., at 659. The Riley court relied on a pre-Tedder decision stating that the advisory opinion of the jury "is an integral part of the death sentencing process." 517 So. 2d, at 657 (citing Lamadline v. State, 303 So. 2d 17, 20 (Fla. 1974)).
4 Responding to this dissent in n. 2, ante, at 528, the Court states that the clause I have quoted was not intended to describe the Court's understanding of the holding in Espinosa. If that be so, the relevance of this portion of the Court's opinion, including its reliance on Godfrey and Maynard, is opaque, at best.
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