546US1
Unit: $U17
[08-22-08 15:50:12] PAGES PGT: OPIN
Cite as: 546 U. S. 212 (2006)
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Opinion of the Court
jury. It nonetheless affirmed Sanders’ death sentence, rely ing on our decision in Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862 (1983), which, it said, “upheld a death penalty judgment despite in validation of one of several aggravating factors.” People v. Sanders, 51 Cal. 3d 471, 520, 797 P. 2d 561, 589–590 (1990) (in bank). It affirmed the conviction and sentence in all other respects. We denied certiorari. Sanders v. California, 500 U. S. 948 (1991). Sanders then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, arguing, as rele vant here, that the jury’s consideration of invalid special cir cumstances rendered his death sentence unconstitutional.1 After Sanders exhausted various state remedies, the District Court denied relief. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. Sanders v. Woodford, 373 F. 3d 1054 (2004). It concluded that “the California court erroneously believed that it could apply the rule of Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862 (1983)— which is applicable only to nonweighing states—and uphold the verdict despite the invalidation of two special circum stances because it was upholding other special circum stances.” Id., at 1064 (citations omitted). Finding Califor nia to be a weighing State, and applying the rules we have announced for such States, see Stringer v. Black, 503 U. S. 222, 232 (1992), the Ninth Circuit concluded that California courts could uphold Sanders’ death sentence only by find ing the jury’s use of the invalid special circumstances to have been harmless beyond a reasonable doubt or by inde pendently reweighing the sentencing factors under § 190.3. Since, it continued, the state courts had done neither, Sand ers had been unconstitutionally deprived of an “individual 1 Because Sanders filed his habeas petition before April 24, 1996, we do not apply the substantive review standards required by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 110 Stat. 1214. See Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U. S. 320, 327 (1997).
