544
Stevens, J., dissenting
meant that constitutional error in the proceedings before the jury is simply irrelevant. Cf. Messer v. State, supra. As then-Justice Rehnquist noted in 1983, it is well-settled Florida law that if the jury makes a recommendation of life imprisonment, "the trial judge may not impose a death sentence unless 'the facts suggesting a sentence of death [are] so clear and convincing that virtually no reasonable person could differ.' Tedder v. State, 322 So. 2d 908, 910 (1975)." Barclay v. Florida, 463 U. S. 939, 955-956 (plurality opinion).6 Similarly, a trial judge should not disturb a jury recommendation of death "unless there appear strong reasons to believe that reasonable persons could not agree with the recommendation." See LeDuc v. State, 365 So. 2d 149, 151 (Fla. 1978), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 885 (1979). Given this, it is vacuous to argue that our prior references to the judge as the sentencer somehow imply that an error before the jury would not affect the ultimate sentence. It is equally vacuous to suggest that our conclusion in Espinosa "that the jury was at least in part a cosentencer" had its source in a case decided "just three weeks earlier," ante, at 533 (citing Sochor v. Florida, 504 U. S. 527 (1992)). In that earlier case, we cited Tedder after explaining that the jury was a constituent element of the sentencer "because the trial judge does not render wholly independent judgment, but must accord deference to the jury's recommendation." Sochor, 504 U. S., at 533.
Third, the Court suggests that the trial court's "weighing of properly narrowed aggravators and mitigators was sufficiently independent of the jury to cure any error in the jury's consideration of a vague aggravator." Ante, at 534 (em-6 The Florida Supreme Court has applied Tedder in numerous cases to reverse a trial judge's override of a jury's life sentence. See, e. g., Wasko v. State, 505 So. 2d 1314, 1318 (1987); Goodwin v. State, 405 So. 2d 170, 172 (1981); Odom v. State, 403 So. 2d 936, 942-943 (1981), cert. denied, 456 U. S. 925 (1982); Neary v. State, 384 So. 2d 881, 885-886 (1980); Malloy v. State, 382 So. 2d 1190, 1193 (1979).
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