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Text: Petitioner, then 19 years of age, and his companion, Amanda Miles, decided to rob Allsup's convenience store in Snyder, Texas, on March 23, 1986. After agreeing that there should be no witnesses to the crime, the pair went to the store to survey its layout and, in particular, to determine the number of employees working in the store that evening. They found that the only employee present during the predawn hours was a clerk, Jack Huddleston. Petitioner and Miles left the store to make their final plans.

They returned to Allsup's a short time later. Petitioner, a handgun in his pocket, reentered the store with Miles. After waiting for other customers to leave, petitioner asked Huddleston whether the store had any orange juice in one gallon plastic jugs because there were none on the shelves. Saying he would check, Huddleston went to the store's cooler. Petitioner followed Huddleston there, told Huddleston the store was being robbed, and ordered him to lie on the floor. After Huddleston complied with the order and placed his hands behind his head, petitioner shot him in the back of the neck, killing him. When petitioner emerged from the cooler, Miles had emptied the cash registers of about $160. They each grabbed a carton of cigarettes and fled.

In April 1986, a few weeks after this crime, petitioner was arrested for a subsequent robbery and attempted murder of a store clerk in Colorado City, Texas. He confessed to the murder of Jack Huddleston and the robbery of Allsup's and was tried and convicted of capital murder. The homicide qualified as a capital offense under Texas law because petitioner intentionally or knowingly caused Huddleston's death and the murder was carried out in the course of committing a robbery. Tex. Penal Code Ann. §§ 19.02(a)(1), 19.03(a)(2) (1989).

After the jury determined that petitioner was guilty of capital murder, a separate punishment phase of the proceedings was conducted in which petitioner's sentence was determined. In conformity with the Texas capital sentencing statute then in effect, see Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 37.071(b) (Vernon 1981),[1] the trial court instructed the jury that it was to answer two special issues:

"[(1)] Was the conduct of the Defendant, Dorsie Lee Johnson, Jr., that caused the death of the deceased, committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result?
. . . . .

"[(2)] Is there a probability that the Defendant, Dorsie Lee Johnson, Jr., would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society?"[2] App. 148-149.
The trial court made clear to the jury the consequences of its answers to the special issues:

"You are further instructed that if the jury returns affirmative or `yes' answer [sic] to all the Issues submitted, this Court shall sentence the Defendant to death. If the jury returns a negative or `no' answer to any Issue submitted, the Court shall sentence the Defendant to life in prison." Id., at 146.
The jury was instructed not to consider or discuss the possibility of parole. Id., at 147. The trial court also instructed the jury as follows concerning its consideration of mitigating evidence:

"In determining each of these Issues, you may take into consideration all the evidence submitted to you in the trial of this case, whether aggravating or mitigating in nature, that is, all the evidence in the first part of the trial when you were called upon to determine the guilt or innocence of the Defendant and all the evidence, if any, in the second part of the trial wherein you are called upon to determine the answers to the Special Issues." Ibid.
Although petitioner's counsel filed various objections to the jury charge, there was no request that a more expansive instruction be given concerning any particular mitigating circumstance, including petitioner's youth.

In anticipation of the trial court's instructions, the State during the punishment phase of the proceedings presented numerous witnesses who testified to petitioner's violent tendencies. The most serious evidence related to the April convenience store robbery in Colorado City. Witnesses testified that petitioner had shot that store clerk in the face, resulting in the victim's permanent disfigurement and brain damage. Other witnesses testified that petitioner had fired two shots at a man outside a restaurant in Snyder only six days after the murder of Huddleston, and a sheriff's deputy who worked in the jail where petitioner was being held testified that petitioner had threatened to "get" the deputy when he got out of jail.

Petitioner's acts of violence were not limited to strangers. A long-time friend of petitioner, Beverly Johnson, testified that in early 1986 petitioner had hit her, thrown a large rock at her head, and pointed a gun at her on several occasions. Petitioner's girlfriend, Paula Williams, reported that, after petitioner had become angry with her one afternoon in 1986, he threatened her with an axe. There were other incidents, of less gravity, before 1986. One of petitioner's classmates testified that petitioner cut him with a piece of glass while they were in the seventh grade. Another classmate testified that petitioner also cut him with glass just a year later, and there was additional evidence presented that petitioner had stabbed a third classmate with a pencil.

The State established that the crimes committed in 1986 were not petitioner's first experience with the criminal justice system. Petitioner had been convicted in 1985 of a store burglary in Waco, Texas. Petitioner twice violated the terms of probation for that offense by smoking marijuana. Petitioner was still on probation when he committed the Huddleston murder.

The defense presented petitioner's father, Dorsie Johnson, Sr., as its only witness. The elder Johnson attributed his son's criminal activities to his drug use and his youth. When asked by defense counsel whether his son at the age of 19 was "a real mature person," petitioner's father answered:

"No, no. Age of nineteen? No, sir. That, also, I find to be a foolish age. That's a foolish age. They tend to want to be macho, built-up, trying to step into manhood. You're not mature-lized for it." Id., at 27.
At the close of his testimony, Johnson summarized the role that he thought youth had played in his son's crime:

"[A]ll I can say is I still think that a kid eighteen or nineteen years old has an undeveloped mind, undeveloped sense of assembling not_x0097_I don't say what is right or wrong, but the evaluation of it, how much, you know, that might be_x0097_well, he just don't_x0097_he just don't evaluate what is worth_x0097_what's worth and what's isn't like he should like a thirty or thirty-five year old man would. He would take under consideration a lot of things that a younger person that age wouldn't." Id., at 47.
The father also testified that his son had been a regular churchgoer and his problems were attributable in large part to the death of his mother following a stroke in 1984 and the murder of his sister in 1985. Finally, the senior Johnson testified to his son's remorse over the killing of Huddleston.

At the voir dire phase of the proceedings, during which more than 90 prospective jurors were questioned over the course of 15 days, petitioner's counsel asked the venirepersons whether they believed that people were capable of change and whether the venirepersons had ever done things as youths that they would not do now. See, e. g., Tr. of Voir Dire in No. 5575 (132d Jud. Dist. Ct., Scurry County, Tex.), pp. 1526-1529 (Juror Swigert); id., at 1691-1692 (Juror Freeman); id., at 2366 (Juror Witte); id., at 2630-2632 (Juror Raborn).[3] Petitioner's counsel returned to this theme in his closing argument:

"The question_x0097_the real question, I think, is whether you believe that there is a possibility that he can change. You will remember that that was one thing every one of you told me you agreed_x0097_every one of you agreed with me that people can change. If you agree that people can change, then that means that Dorsie can change and that takes question two [regarding future dangerousness] out of the realm of probability and into possibility, you see, because if he can change, then it is no longer probable that he will do these things, but only possible that he can and will do these things, you see.
"If people couldn't change, if you could say I know people cannot change, then you could say probably. But every one of you knows in your heart and in your mind that people can and people do change and Dorsie Johnson can change and, therefore, the answer to question two should be no." App. 81.
Counsel also urged the jury to remember the testimony of petitioner's father. Id., at 73-74.

The jury was instructed that the State bore the burden of proving each special issue beyond a reasonable doubt. Id., at 145. A unanimous jury found that the answer to both special issues was yes, and the trial court sentenced petitioner to death, as required by law. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 37.071(e) (Vernon 1981).

On appeal, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence after rejecting petitioner's seven allegations of error, none of which involved a challenge to the punishment-phase jury instructions. 773 S. W. 2d 322 (1989). Five days after that state court ruling, we issued our opinion in Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302 (1989). Petitioner filed a motion for rehearing in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals arguing, among other points, that the special issues did not allow for adequate consideration of his youth. Citing Penry, petitioner claimed that a separate instruction should have been given that would have allowed the jury to consider petitioner's age as a mitigating factor. Although petitioner had not requested such an instruction at trial and had not argued the point prior to the rehearing stage on appeal, no procedural bar was interposed. Instead, the Court of Criminal Appeals considered the argument on the merits and rejected it. After noting that it had already indicated in Lackey v. State, 819 S. W. 2d 111, 134 (Tex. Crim. App. 1989), that youth was relevant to the jury's consideration of the second special issue, the court reasoned that "[i]f a juror believed that [petitioner's] violent actions were a result of his youth, that same juror would naturally believe that [petitioner] would cease to behave violently as he grew older." App. 180. The court concluded that "the jury was able to express a reasoned moral response to [petitioner's] mitigating evidence within the scope of the art. 37.071 instructions given to them by the trial court." Id., at 180-181.

Petitioner filed a petition for certiorari, which we granted. 506 U. S. 1090 (1993).