236
Opinion of the Court
not too shy to ask questions, suggesting that it would have asked another if it felt the judge's response unsatisfactory. Finally, defense counsel specifically explained to the jury during closing argument that it could find both aggravating factors proven and still not sentence Weeks to death. Thus, once the jury received the judge's response to its question, it had not only the text of the instruction we approved in Buchanan, but also the additional instruction on mitigation, see n. 2, supra, and its own recollection of defense counsel's closing argument for guidance. At best, petitioner has demonstrated only that there exists a slight possibility that the jury considered itself precluded from considering mitigating evidence. Such a demonstration is insufficient to prove a constitutional violation under Boyde, which requires the showing of a reasonable likelihood that the jury felt so restrained.5 See 494 U. S., at 380.
It also appears that petitioner's attorneys did not view the judge's answer to the jury's question as a serious flaw in the trial at that time. Petitioner's attorney made an oral
5 Justice Stevens states that the record establishes a "virtual certainty" that the jury did not understand that it could find an aggravating circumstance and still impose a life sentence. Post, at 238. In view of the different conclusion reached not only by this Court, but by the Virginia trial judge, seven justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia, a federal habeas District Judge, and three judges of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, this statement can only be described as extravagant hyperbole.
The dissent also interprets the evidence of the jurors being in tears at the time of the verdict as resulting from having performed what they thought to be their "duty under the law" despite their "strong desire" to impose the life sentence. Post, at 249. It is difficult enough to speculate with confidence about the deliberations of jurors in a case such as this, and still more difficult to speculate about their emotions at the time they render a verdict. But if we were to join in this speculation, it is every bit as plausible—if not more so—to think that the reason that jurors were in tears was because they had just been through an exhausting, soul-searching process that led to a conclusion that petitioner, despite the mitigating evidence he presented, still deserved the death sentence.
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