Cite as: 532 U. S. 782 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Penry's conviction and sentence. The court rejected Penry's claim that the admission of language from the 1977 Peebles report violated Penry's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The court reasoned that because Dr. Peebles had examined Penry two years prior to the murder of Pamela Carpenter, Penry had not at that time been "confronted with someone who was essentially an agent for the State whose function was to gather evidence that might be used against him in connection with the crime for which he was incarcerated." Penry v. State, 903 S. W. 2d 715, 759-760 (1995) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
The court also rejected Penry's claim that the jury instructions given at his second sentencing hearing were constitutionally inadequate because they did not permit the jury to consider and give effect to his mitigating evidence of mental retardation and childhood abuse. The court cited Penry I for the proposition that when a defendant proffers "miti-gating evidence that is not relevant to the special issues or that has relevance to the defendant's moral culpability beyond the scope of the special issues . . . the jury must be given a special instruction in order to allow it to consider and give effect to such evidence." 903 S. W. 2d, at 765. Quoting the supplemental jury instruction given at Penry's second trial, see supra, at 789-790, the court overruled Penry's claim of error. The court stated that "a nullification instruction such as this one is sufficient to meet the constitutional requirements of [Penry I]." 903 S. W. 2d, at 765.
In 1998, after his petition for state habeas corpus relief was denied, see App. 841 (trial court order); id., at 863 (Court of Criminal Appeals order), Penry filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (1994 ed. and Supp. V) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The District Court rejected both of Penry's claims, finding that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' conclusions on both points were neither contrary
791
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