Cite as: 528 U. S. 225 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
dence.' " Ibid. (quoting Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370, 380 (1990)). But we stated that we have never held that the State must structure in a particular way the manner in which juries consider mitigating evidence. 522 U. S., at 276. We concluded that the Virginia pattern jury instruction at issue there, and again at issue here, did not violate those principles:
"The instruction did not foreclose the jury's consideration of any mitigating evidence. By directing the jury to base its decision on 'all the evidence,' the instruction afforded jurors an opportunity to consider mitigating evidence. The instruction informed the jurors that if they found the aggravating factor proved beyond a reasonable doubt then they 'may fix' the penalty at death, but directed that if they believed that all the evidence justified a lesser sentence then they 'shall' impose a life sentence. The jury was thus allowed to impose a life sentence even if it found the aggravating factor proved." Id., at 277.
But, as noted above, the jury in this case also received an explicit direction to consider mitigating evidence—an instruction that was not given to the jury in Buchanan. Thus, so far as the adequacy of the jury instructions is concerned, their sufficiency here follows a fortiori from Buchanan.3
3 Justice Stevens attempts to distinguish the instruction given here from that given in Buchanan v. Angelone, 522 U. S., at 272, n. 1, on the basis that the first paragraph of the "Weeks instructions contain[s] a longer description" of the aggravating circumstances. Post, at 239 (dissenting opinion). The first paragraph is longer here because the prosecution in Buchanan sought to prove only one aggravating circumstance. See 522 U. S., at 271. The mere addition of the description of another aggravating circumstance in the first paragraph, however, does not at all affect the second clause of the second paragraph of the instruction—the clause that Justice Stevens finds "ambiguous." Post, at 241.
More importantly, Justice Stevens, after stating that his "point is best made by quoting the instruction itself," post, at 239, fails to quote
233
Page: Index Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007