Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 318

Cite as: 558 U. S. 139 (2010) 

157 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

able  life  sentences—is  appropriate.  Consistent  with  Ohio 
law  at  the  time  of  Spisak’s  trial,1  the  jury  was  told  that  it 
must  reach  its  decision  unanimously.  The  jury  was  not  in­
structed  on  the  consequence  of  its  failure  to  agree  unani­
mously  that  Spisak  should  be  sentenced  to  death.  Spisak 
and  the  Court  of  Appeals  both  described  these  instructions 
as “acquittal ﬁrst” because they would have led a reasonable 
jury  to  believe  that  it  ﬁrst  had  to  “acquit”  the  defendant  of 
death—unanimously—before  it  could  give  effect  to  a  lesser 
penalty. 

Following its prior decision in Davis v.  Mitchell, 318 F. 3d 
682 (CA6 2003), in which it struck down “virtually identical” 
jury instructions, Spisak v.  Mitchell, 465 F. 3d 684, 710 (CA6 
2006),  the  Court  of  Appeals  concluded  that  the  instructions 
given during Spisak’s penalty phase were impermissible be­
cause they “require[d] the jury to unanimously reject a death 
sentence  before  considering  other  sentencing  alternatives,” 
id.,  at  709.  In  Davis,  the  court  had  explained  that  an  in­
struction  that  requires  a  capital  jury  to  “ﬁrst  unanimously 
reject  the  death  penalty  before  it  can  consider  a  life 
sentence . . .  precludes the individual jury from giving effect 
to mitigating evidence . . . .”  318 F. 3d, at 689.  The source 

1 Ohio  no longer  uses the  type of  jury instructions  at  issue in  this case. 
In  1996  the  Ohio  Supreme  Court  instructed  that  “[i]n  Ohio,  a  solitary 
juror  may  prevent  a  death  penalty  recommendation  by  ﬁnding  that  the 
aggravating circumstances in the case do not outweigh the mitigating fac­
tors.  Jurors  from  this  point  forward  should  be  so  instructed.”  State  v. 
Brooks,  75  Ohio  St.  3d  148,  162,  661  N.  E.  2d  1030,  1042.  Although  the 
Brooks  decision  signaled  a  change  in  Ohio’s  capital  jury  instructions,  it 
was not a change in state law: One juror had the power to prevent a death 
penalty  recommendation  before  Brooks.  See  State  v.  Springer,  63  Ohio 
St. 3d 167, 172, 586 N. E. 2d 96, 100 (1992) (holding that an offender must 
be sentenced to life if the penalty-phase jury deadlocks).  Thus, consistent 
with  our  view  that  “accurate  sentencing  information  is  an  indispensable 
prerequisite  to  a  [jury’s]  determination  of  whether  a  defendant  shall  live 
or die,” Gregg v.  Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 190 (1976) ( joint opinion of Stew­
art,  Powell,  and  Stevens,  JJ.),  the  Ohio  high  court  laudably  improved 
upon the accuracy of Ohio capital jury instructions in Brooks.