Cite as: 532 U. S. 36 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
After the prosecution's closing argument, and out of the presence of the jury, Shafer's counsel renewed his plea for "a life without parole charge." App. 188. He referred to his earlier submissions and urged, in addition, that the State had placed future dangerousness at issue during closing argument by repeating the words of an alarmed witness at the crime scene: "[T]hey [Shafer and his two accomplices] might come back, they might come back." App. 188. The trial judge denied the request. The judge "admit[ted he] had some concern [as to whether the State's] argument . . . had crossed the line," but in the end he found "that it comes close, but did not." App. 191-192.
Instructing the jury, the judge explained:
"If you do not unanimously find the existence of the aggravating circumstance as set forth on the form [murder during the commission of an attempted armed robbery], you do not need to go any further.
"If you find unanimously the existence of a statutory aggravating circumstance . . . you will go further and continue your deliberations.
"Once you have unanimously found and signed as to the presence of an aggravated circumstance, you then further deliberate, and determine whether or not Wesley Aaron Shafer should be sentence[d] to life imprisonment or death." App. 202.
The judge twice told the jury, quoting words from § 16-3- 20(A), that "life imprisonment means until the death of the defendant." App. 201; see App. 209. In line with his prior rulings, the judge did not instruct that a life sentence, if recommended by the jury, would be without parole. In the concluding portion of his charge, he told the jury that "the sentence you send to me by way of a recommendation will in fact be the sentence that the court imposes on the defendant." App. 215. After the judge instructed the jury, the defense once more renewed its "objection to the statutory
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