Cite as: 527 U. S. 373 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
another in an effort to reach agreement, if you can do so." Id., at 46.
Notwithstanding the absence of an explicit instruction on the consequences of nonunanimity, petitioner identifies several passages which, he believes, support the inference that the jury was confused on this point. He trains on that portion of the instructions telling the jurors that the court would decide the sentence if they did not recommend a sentence of death or life without the possibility of release. Petitioner argues that this statement, coupled with two earlier references to a "lesser sentence" option, caused the jurors to infer that the District Court would impose a lesser sentence if they could not unanimously agree on a sentence of death or life without the possibility of release. He maintains that this inference is strengthened by a later instruction: "In order to bring back a verdict recommending the punishment of death or life without the possibility of release, all twelve of you must unanimously vote in favor of such specific penalty." Id., at 45. According to petitioner, the failure to mention the "lesser sentence" option in this statement strongly implied that, in contradistinction to the first two options, the "lesser sentence" option did not require jury unanimity.
Petitioner parses these passages too finely. Our decisions repeatedly have cautioned that instructions must be evaluated not in isolation but in the context of the entire charge. See, e. g., Bryan v. United States, 524 U. S. 184, 199 (1998); United States v. Park, 421 U. S. 658, 674 (1975); Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U. S. 141, 147 (1973); Boyd v. United States, 271 U. S. 104, 107 (1926). We agree with the Fifth Circuit that when these passages are viewed in the context of the entire instructions, they lack ambiguity and cannot be given the reading that petitioner advances. See 132 F. 3d, at 244. We previously have held that instructions that might be ambiguous in the abstract can be cured when read in conjunction with other instructions. Bryan, supra, at 199; Victor,
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