Court Opinion

ID: 9432872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:36:39.42384+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:36.063070
License: Public Domain

Justice Scalia,
concurring.
In my view the Lockett-Eddings principle that the sentencer must be allowed to consider “all relevant mitigating evidence” is quite incompatible with the Furman principle that the sentencer’s discretion must be channeled. See Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S. 639, 656 (1990) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). That will continue to be true unless and until the sort of “channeling” of mitigating discretion that Texas has engaged in here is not merely permitted (as the Court today holds), but positively *374required — a further elaboration of our intricate Eighth Amendment jurisprudence that I neither look forward to nor would support.
Today’s decision, however, is simply a clarification (and I think a plainly correct one) of this Court’s opinions in Franklin v. Lynaugh, 487 U. S. 164 (1988) (plurality opinion), and Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370 (1990), which I joined. In fact, the essence of today’s holding (to the effect that discretion may constitutionally be channeled) was set forth in my dissent in Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 350 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Accordingly, I join the opinion of the Court.