Johnson v. Texas

Summary

Justice Kennedy, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices White, Scalia, and Thomas, held that Texas's former capital-sentencing special issues allowed adequate consideration of Johnson's youth and therefore did not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The future-dangerousness inquiry permitted jurors to give mitigating effect to the transient immaturity and recklessness associated with youth; no additional instruction was required. Justice Scalia concurred separately, maintaining that the Court's mitigation and guided-discretion principles were incompatible but agreeing that precedent permitted Texas's approach. Justice Thomas concurred separately, reiterating his disagreement with Penry while finding it distinguishable. Justice O'Connor, joined by Justices Blackmun, Stevens, and Souter, dissented because the special issues did not permit full consideration of youth's bearing on moral culpability; she would have vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing.