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Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
tal and noncapital cases); Ford, supra, at 425 (Powell, J., concurring) (noting that the Court's decisions imposing heightened requirements on capital trials and sentencing proceedings do not apply in the postconviction context).4 The Court's analysis in Dumschat, moreover, turned not on the fact that it was a noncapital case, but on the nature of the benefit sought: "In terms of the Due Process Clause, a Connecticut felon's expectation that a lawfully imposed sentence will be commuted or that he will be pardoned is no more substantial than an inmate's expectation, for example, that he will not be transferred to another prison; it is simply a unilateral hope." 452 U. S., at 464 (footnote omitted). A death row inmate's petition for clemency is also a "unilateral hope." The defendant in effect accepts the finality of the death sentence for purposes of adjudication, and appeals for clemency as a matter of grace.
Respondent also asserts that, as in Greenholtz, Ohio has created protected interests by establishing mandatory clemency application and review procedures. In Greenholtz, supra, at 11-12, the Court held that the expectancy of release on parole created by the mandatory language of the Nebraska statute was entitled to some measure of constitutional protection.
Ohio's clemency procedures do not violate due process. Despite the Authority's mandatory procedures, the ultimate decisionmaker, the Governor, retains broad discretion. Under any analysis, the Governor's executive discretion need not be fettered by the types of procedural protections sought by respondent. See Greenholtz, supra, at 12-16 (recognizing the Nebraska parole statute created a protected liberty
4 The dissent provides no basis for its assertion that the special considerations afforded a capital defendant's life interest at the trial stage "apply with special force to the final stage of the decisional process that precedes an official deprivation of life." Post, at 295. This not only ignores our case law to the contrary, supra, at 281 and this page, but also assumes that executive clemency hearings are part and parcel of the judicial process preceding an execution.
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