Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 320.0

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

159 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

punishment  but  not  receive  the  death  penalty.  Id.,  at  642. 
We concluded that the false choice before the jury—death or 
acquit—“introduce[d] a level of uncertainty and unreliability 
into the factﬁnding process that cannot be tolerated in a capi­
tal case.”  Id., at 643.  In other words, 

“the difﬁculty with the Alabama statute is that it inter­
jects irrelevant considerations into the factﬁnding proc­
ess, diverting the jury’s attention from the central issue 
of whether the State has satisﬁed its burden of proving 
beyond  a  reasonable  doubt  that  the  defendant  is  guilty 
of  a  capital  crime.  Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  the  unavail­
ability  of  the  third  option  of  convicting  on  a  lesser  in­
cluded offense may encourage the jury to convict for an 
impermissible  reason—its  belief  that  the  defendant  is 
guilty  of  some  serious  crime  and  should  be  punished. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  apparently  mandatory  nature  of 
the  death  penalty  may  encourage  it  to  acquit  for  an 
equally impermissible reason—that, whatever his crime, 
the defendant does not deserve death.”  Id., at 642–643. 

Although  Beck  dealt  with  guilt-phase  instructions,  the 
reach of its holding is not so limited.  The “third option” we 
discussed  in  Beck  was,  plainly,  a  life  sentence.  Moreover, 
the  unusual  features  of  the  Alabama  capital  sentencing 
scheme  collapsed  the  guilt  and  penalty  phases  before  the 
jury  (but  not  before  the  judge).  Our  concern  in  Beck  was 
that presenting the jury with only two options—death or no 
punishment—introduced  a  risk  of  arbitrariness  and  error 
into the deliberative process that the Constitution could not 
abide  in  the  capital  context.  See  Spaziano  v.  Florida,  468 
U. S.  447,  455  (1984)  (“The  goal  of  the  Beck  rule,  in  other 
words, is to eliminate the distortion of the factﬁnding process 
that is created when the jury is forced into an all-or-nothing 
choice  between  capital  murder  and  innocence”).  We  held, 
therefore, that the jury must be given a meaningful opportu­