Cite as: 521 U. S. 151 (1997)
Stevens, J., dissenting
to the issue of future dangerousness, 463 U. S., at 1003, and consistent with the rule of Gardner because it provided the jury with accurate information and did not preclude the defendant from offering argument or evidence regarding the Governor's power to commute a life sentence. 463 U. S., at 1004. In a comment that anticipated the precise holding in Simmons, the Court concluded that the instruction under review "corrects a misconception and supplies the jury with accurate information for its deliberation in selecting an appropriate sentence." 463 U. S., at 1009.10
While the Ramos Court concluded that a State could constitutionally require trial judges to inform sentencing juries about the possibility of commutation of a life sentence, the Court did not hold that a State was constitutionally compelled to do so. The majority today, ante, at 163-164, suggests that the Ramos Court's endorsement of that option— involving a choice between two nonmisleading instructions, one mentioning and the other not mentioning the remote "possibility" of parole—might have led reasonable state judges to conclude that they could allow juries to be misled on the future dangerousness issue by concealing entirely the legal certainty of parole impossibility. But the general rule applied in Ramos simply permits state courts to give accurate instructions that will prevent juries from being misled about sentencing options in capital cases. In order to decide Simmons correctly, there was no need to "carv[e] out an exception," ante, at 166, from that rule.
The Court's reading of Caldwell is equally unpersuasive. In that case, the prosecutor had urged the jury not to view itself as finally determining whether the defendant would
10 The Court cited with approval the provision of the Model Penal Code recommending that the jury be advised of "the nature of the sentence of imprisonment that may be imposed, including its implication with respect to possible release upon parole, if the jury verdict is against sentence of death." California v. Ramos, 463 U. S., at 1009, n. 23 (quoting American Law Institute, Model Penal Code § 210.6 (Prop. Off. Draft 1962)).
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