Cite as: 530 U. S. 156 (2000)
Stevens, J., dissenting
the prosecution relied upon the Domino's Pizza robbery—the very crime Virginia has precluded Ramdass from relying upon to establish his parole ineligibility.2
There is also no question that Ramdass was denied the opportunity to inform the jury of his parole ineligibility. During the sentencing deliberations, the jury asked the following question: "[I]f the Defendant is given life, is there a possibility of parole at some time before his natural death?" App. 88. Rather than giving any kind of straightforward answer, and rather than permitting counsel to explain petitioner's parole ineligibility, the court instructed: "[Y]ou should impose such punishment as you feel is just under the evidence . . . . You are not to concern yourselves with what may happen afterwards." Id., at 91.
Finally, it is undisputed that the absence of a clear instruction made a difference. The question itself demonstrates that parole ineligibility was important to the jury, and that the jury was confused about whether a "life" sentence truly means life—or whether it means life subject to
released on mandatory parole" in 1992, shortly before his most recent crime spree began); id., at 51b-52 (describing Ramdass' 1992 release on mandatory parole).
2 Id., at 57-59 ("On that next night, August 30th, you did a robbery of the Domino's Pizza over in Alexandria? . . . Well, if the cab driver was shot in the head on August 30th and Domino's Pizza was August 30th, you did them both the same day; didn't you?"); id., at 81 ("August 30th, 1992, he robbed Domino's Pizza at the point of a gun in Alexandria and he robbed Domino's Pizza not long after he shot that Arlington cab driver through the head . . .").
Of course, Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154 (1994), applies when the prosecution argues future dangerousness; it does not require the State to argue any particular past crime. My purpose in pointing out Virginia's reliance on the Domino's Pizza verdict is to underscore the unfairness of permitting Virginia to use it, while denying Ramdass the same use. The plurality's repeated statement that Virginia brought up the crime in its cross-examination rather than its case in chief, ante, at 162, 170, 171, neither means Simmons is inapplicable nor mitigates the unfairness here. It only signals the formalism the plurality is prepared to endorse.
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