Cite as: 530 U. S. 156 (2000)
Stevens, J., dissenting
1010-1012. Indeed, in California v. Ramos, we held it ordinarily proper to "defe[r] to the State's choice of substantive factors relevant to the penalty determination." Id., at 1001. Notwithstanding the broad discretion recognized in Ramos, the latitude to which the States are entitled is not unbounded; at times, it must give way to the demands of due process.
One such due process requirement is that a defendant must have an opportunity to rebut the State's case against him. Simmons, 512 U. S., at 175 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment). And "[w]hen the State seeks to show the defendant's future dangerousness, . . . the fact that he will never be released from prison will often be the only way that a violent criminal can successfully rebut the State's case." Id., at 177 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment). Accordingly, "despite our general deference to state decisions regarding what the jury should be told about sentencing, . . . due process requires that the defendant be allowed [to bring his parole ineligibility to the jury's attention] in cases in which the only available alternative sentence to death is life imprisonment without possibility of parole and the prosecution argues that the defendant will pose a threat to society in the future." Ibid.
The rationale for the Simmons exception to the general rule of Ramos is quite apparent. In Ramos, the defendant claimed that if the State were permitted to argue that the Governor could commute a sentence of life without parole, then due process entitled him to tell the jury that the Governor could commute a death sentence as well. We rejected that argument, however, holding that the information the defendant sought to introduce "would not 'balance' the impact" of telling the jury that the Governor could commute a sentence of life without parole. 463 U. S., at 1011. Nor would it make the jury "any less inclined to vote for the death penalty upon learning" that information. Ibid. Nor, finally, were we persuaded that it would "impermissibly impe[l] the
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