Antonin Scalia

“ Finally, by requiring the jury unanimously to find beyond a reasonable doubt not only that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances, but also that they are sufficiently substantial in light of the mitigating circumstances to justify the death penalty, North Carolina has provided even an extra measure of assurance that death will not be lightly or mechanically imposed. ”

“ The quality of what it substitutes is conveniently evaluated by considering how future North Carolina juries will behave under the Court's own doomsday hypothetical, in which all jurors believe the defendant has proved one mitigating circumstance, but each believes a different one. Ante, at 439-440. A jury, of course, is not a collection of individuals who are asked separately about their independent views, but a body designed to deliberate and decide collectively. ”

“ In Lockett, the Court vacated a death sentence imposed under a statute that limited the sentencing judge's consideration of mitigating factors to three statutory circumstances. A plurality of the Court reasoned that "the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require that the sentencer, in all but the rarest kind of capital case, not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death." ”

“ In sum, the constitutional prohibition asserted by the petitioner was not decided in Mills and is not supported by Lockett and Eddings. Since nothing else is adduced to support it, there is no basis for believing that it exists. It is, moreover, contrary to the constitutional principles governing jury trial in other contexts, contrary to the principle of guided discretion that launched our modern incursion into the field of capital sentencing, and destructive of sound jury deliberation. ”

“ According to the Court, North Carolina's system in which one juror can prevent the others from giving effect to a mitigating circumstance is invalid only because the Constitution requires, in the context of the North Carolina statute, a system in which one juror can prevent the others from denying effect to a mitigating circumstance. ”

“ When we abandon text and tradition, and in addition do not restrict prior cases to their holdings, knowing and observing the law of the land becomes impossible. State officials sworn to uphold the Constitution we expound rush to comply with one of our newly designed precepts, only to be told that by complying they have violated another one that points in the opposite direction. ”

“ A general verdict is of course the usual practice. But it is this Court that has pushed the States to special verdicts in the capital sentencing field. We have intimated that requiring "the sentencing authority . . . to specify the factors it relied upon in reaching its decision" may be necessary to ensure, through "meaningful appellate review [,] that death sentences are not imposed capriciously or in a freakish manner." Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 195, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2935, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and STEVENS, JJ.) . ”

“ Before discussing the constitutional issue petitioner raises, I wish to address briefly the Court's assertion that we have already addressed and resolved this very issue in the past-that "our decision [in Mills ] clearly governs this case." Ante, at 439. Although there is language in Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988) , suggesting that a unanimity requirement would contravene this Court's decisions in Lockett v. ”