Cite as: 539 U. S. 510 (2003)
Scalia, J., dissenting
ante, at 534-535—indeed, even refers to it as "powerful" evidence, ante, at 534—and assumes that Wiggins' lawyers could have simply handed Hans Selvog's report to the jury. Nothing could be further from the truth. As the State Circuit Court explained in rejecting Wiggins' Sixth Amendment claim, "Selvog's report would have had a great deal of difficulty in getting into evidence in Maryland. He was not licensed in Maryland, the report contains multiple instances of hearsay, it contains many opinions in the nature of diagnosis of a medical nature." App. to Pet. for Cert. 156a.
The Court contends that Selvog's report "may have been admissible," ante, at 536—relying for that contention upon Whittlesey v. State, supra. Whittlesey, however, merely vacated the trial judge's decision that a social-history report assembled by Selvog was per se inadmissible on hearsay grounds and remanded for a determination whether the hearsay evidence was "reliable." Id., at 71-72, 665 A. 2d, at 243. Thus, unless the Court is prepared to make the implausible contention that Wiggins' hearsay statements in Selvog's report are "reliable" under Maryland law, there is no basis for its conclusion that Maryland "consider[s] this type of evidence relevant at sentencing," ante, at 537. The State Circuit Court in the present case, in its decision that post-dated Whittlesey, certainly did not think Selvog's report met the standard of reliability, App. to Pet. for Cert. 156a, and that court's assessment was undoubtedly correct. Wiggins' accounts of his background, as reported by Selvog, are the hearsay statements of a convicted murderer and, as the trial testimony in this case demonstrates, a serial liar. Wiggins lied to Geraldine Armstrong when he told her that Mrs. Lacs's car belongs to " 'a buddy of min[e],' " App. 179. He lied when he told the police that he had obtained
perhaps anticipating, correctly alas, that they could succeed in getting this Court to vacate a jury verdict of death on the basis of rumor and innuendo in a "social history" report that would never be admissible in a court of law.
555
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