Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 189

28 

WONG  v.  BELMONTES 

Stevens, J., concurring 

facts  of  McConnell’s  murder.  It  becomes  even  harder  to 
envision  such  a  result  when  the  evidence  that  Belmontes 
had committed another murder—“the most powerful imagin­
able aggravating evidence,” as Judge Levi put it, Belmontes, 
S–89–0736, App. to Pet. for Cert. 183a—is added to the mix. 
Schick’s  mitigation  strategy  failed,  but  the  notion  that  the 
result  could  have  been  different  if  only  Schick  had  put  on 
more  than  the  nine  witnesses  he  did,  or  called  expert  wit­
nesses to bolster his case, is fanciful. 

The petition for certiorari and the motion for leave to pro­
ceed  in  forma  pauperis  are  granted.  The  judgment  of  the 
Court  of  Appeals  for  the  Ninth  Circuit  is  reversed,  and  the 
case  is  remanded  for  further  proceedings  consistent  with 
this opinion. 

It is so ordered. 

Justice Stevens, concurring. 

When  Fernando  Belmontes  was  sentenced  to  death  in 
1982,  California  Penal  Code  § 190.3(k)*  conveyed  the  unmis­
takable  message  that  juries  could  not  give  any  mitigating 
weight  to  evidence  that  did  not  extenuate  the  severity  of 
the  crime.  See  Ayers  v.  Belmontes,  549  U. S.  7,  27  (2006) 
(Stevens,  J.,  dissenting).  The  trial  judge  who  presided  at 
Belmontes’  sentencing  hearing  so  understood  the  law,  and 
his  instructions  to  the  jury  reﬂected  that  understanding. 
See id., at 33–34.  It was only later that both the California 
Supreme  Court  and  this  Court  squarely  held  that  a  jury 
must be allowed to give weight to any aspect of a defendant’s 
character or history that may provide a basis for a sentence 
other  than  death,  even  if  such  evidence  does  not  “ ‘tend  to 
reduce the defendant’s culpability for his crime.’ ”  Id., at 28 
(quoting  Skipper  v.  South  Carolina,  476  U. S.  1,  11  (1986) 
(Powell, J., concurring in judgment)). 

*Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 190.3(k) (West 1988).