384
Opinion of the Court
"The court properly refused an instruction offered by the defendant which would have told the jury that if it could not reach agreement as to the appropriate punishment, the court would dismiss it and impose a life sentence. While this was a correct statement of law it concerned a procedural matter and was not one which should have been the subject of an instruction. It would have been an open invitation for the jury to avoid its responsibility and to disagree." Id., at 979, 266 S. E. 2d, at 92.
In light of the legitimate reasons for not instructing the jury as to the consequences of deadlock, and in light of congressional silence, we will not exercise our supervisory powers to require that an instruction of the sort petitioner sought be given in every case. Cf. Shannon v. United States, 512 U. S. 573, 587 (1994).
B
Petitioner further argues that the jury was led to believe that if it could not reach a unanimous sentence recommendation he would receive a judge-imposed sentence less severe than life imprisonment, and his proposed instruction as to the consequences of deadlock was necessary to correct the jury's erroneous impression. Moreover, he contends that the alleged confusion independently warrants reversal of his sentence under the Due Process Clause, the Eighth Amendment, and the Act itself. He grounds his due process claim in the assertion that sentences may not be based on materially untrue assumptions, his Eighth Amendment claim in his contention that the jury is entitled to accurate sentencing information, and his statutory claim in an argument that jury confusion over the available sentencing options constitutes an "arbitrary factor" under § 3595(c)(2)(A).
To put petitioner's claim in the proper context, we must briefly review the jury instructions and sentencing proce-
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