OPINION OF THE COURT OREGON V. GUZEK 546 U. S. ____ (2006) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 04-928 OREGON, PETITIONER v. RANDY LEE GUZEK

															on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
oregon

															[February 22, 2006]

															   Justice Breyer delivered the
opinion of the Court.

															   Respondent Randy Lee Guzek was
found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death. On appeal,
the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the conviction but vacated the
sentence and ordered a new sentencing proceeding. The question
before the Court is whether the State may limit the
innocence-related evidence he can introduce at that proceeding to
the evidence he introduced at his original trial. We hold that the
limitation does not violate the Constitution.

															I

															   Oregon tried Guzek for the
offense of capital murder. The evidence showed that Guzek and two
associates decided to burglarize the Houser family home, that they
entered the house, that an associate killed Rod Houser, and that
Guzek then robbed and killed Lois Houser. After the police learned
that Guzek held a special grudge against the Housers, they traced
him and his associates. The associates confessed. And they
testified at trial, painting Guzek as the ringleader.

															   Guzek’s defense rested in part
upon an alibi. He presented two alibi witnesses, his grandfather
and his mother, who testified that Guzek had been with the one or
the other at the time of the crime. The jury disbelieved the alibi,
it convicted Guzek, and it sentenced him to death.

															   Guzek appealed; the Oregon Supreme Court
affirmed the conviction; but the court ordered a new sentencing
proceeding. Guzek was again sentenced to death; he again appealed;
and the Oregon Supreme Court again ordered resentencing. Guzek was
sentenced to death for the third time; he again appealed; and yet
again the Oregon Supreme Court found the sentencing procedures
faulty. Seeking to avoid further errors at the next (the fourth)
sentencing proceeding, the Oregon Supreme Court also addressed the
admissibility of certain evidence Guzek seeks to introduce at that
proceeding, including live testimony from his mother about his
alibi.

															   The Oregon Supreme Court held that the Eighth
and Fourteenth Amendments provide Guzek a federal constitutional
right to introduce this evidence at his upcoming sentencing
proceeding. At Oregon’s request, we agreed to review that
determination. 544 U. S. ___ (2005).

															II

															   Before turning to the merits of
Oregon’s claim, we consider a motion that Guzek made, asking us to
dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted. The motion
rests upon Guzek’s claim that, irrespective of federal law, state law gives him the right to introduce his mother’s
live testimony—the additional alibi evidence here at issue. See
Ore. Rev. Stat. §138.012(2)(b) (2003). For this reason, he says,
the Court lacks jurisdiction to hear this appeal, or, at the least,
there is no good practical reason for us to decide the federal
issue.

															   We cannot agree, however, that we
lack jurisdiction to hear the case. We possess jurisdiction to
review state-court determinations that rest upon federal law. 28 U.
S. C. §1257(a). And the Oregon Supreme Court here based its
legal conclusion in relevant part on federal law. The court pointed
out that state law permits the introduction (at a new
sentencing hearing) of “ ‘evidence … relevant to
[the] sentence including . . . mitigating evidence relevant to … [w]hether the defendant should receive a
death sentence.’ ” App. to Pet. for Cert. 45 (quoting Ore.
Rev. Stat. §§163.150(1)(a), (b) (2003); emphasis added and
deleted). But it immediately added that the state law’s words
“relevant … mitigating evidence” refer (in the present context)
only to evidence that the Federal Constitution grants a
defendant the right to present. App. to Pet. for Cert. 45–52.

															   The Oregon court went on to discuss this
Court’s statements to the effect that the Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendments “ ‘require that the sentencer … not be precluded
from considering, as a mitigating factor … any of the circumstances
of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a
sentence less than death.’ ” Id. , at 54 (quoting Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586 , 604
(1978) (plurality opinion); emphasis deleted); cf. App. to Pet. for
Cert. 56 (recognizing that this aspect of Lockett was
adopted by a majority of the Court in Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U. S. 104 , 110 (1982)). And the
Oregon court then interpreted this Court’s holding in Green v. Georgia, 442 U. S. 95 (1979) (per curiam) , as including, within that federal
admissibility requirement, evidence which, like the proffered alibi
testimony, tends to show that the defendant did not commit the
crime for which he has been convicted. Thus, it held that state law
demanded “admissibility” solely for a federal reason. And we
possess jurisdiction. See, e.g., South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U. S. 553 , 556, n. 5
(1983); Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648 , 651–653
(1979).

															   Neither are we persuaded by Guzek’s argument
that we should dismiss the case because irrespective of federal law
and irrespective of the Oregon Supreme Court’s federal holding,
Oregon law gives him the right to introduce witnesses who testified
at the guilt phrase; and his mother was such a witness (a fact, he
says, that the Oregon Supreme Court overlooked). Guzek points in
support to an Oregon capital-case resentencing statute that
says,

															“[a] transcript of all testimony and all exhibits
and other evidence properly admitted in the prior trial … are
admissible in the new sentencing proceeding.” Ore. Rev. Stat.
§138.012(2)(b) (2003).

															The provision adds that,

															“[e]ither party may recall any witness who testified at the
prior trial … and may present additional relevant evidence.” Ibid. We do not doubt that these provisions give
Guzek the state–law right to introduce a transcript of
guilt-phase testimony. App. to Pet. for Cert. 43 (authorizing
introduction of transcript of Guzek’s grandfather’s alibi
testimony). But Guzek wishes to do more than introduce a transcript of his mother’s alibi evidence; he wishes to
call his mother to the stand as a live witness and elicit additional alibi testimony. Tr. of Oral Arg. 37–39, 41,
55–56. The Oregon statute quoted above does not expressly say
whether he may do so. It does give him the right to “recall any
witness” who testified at the first trial and to “present
additional relevant evidence.” (Emphasis added.) But is
this additional evidence “relevant”? The Oregon Supreme Court
thought so, but only because federal law insists upon its
relevance. And its opinion suggests that, in the absence of federal
compulsion, it would not fall within the scope of the state
statutory word “relevant.” See supra , at 3.

															   At most, Guzek has shown that state law might, not that it does, independently give him
the right to introduce this evidence. We have made clear that “a possible adequate and independent state ground” for a
decision does not “bar [our] reaching the federal questions” where,
as here, a “State Supreme Court quite clearly rested its [decision]
solely on the Federal Constitution.” California v. Ramos, 463
U. S. 992 , 997, n. 7 (1983); see also City of Revere v. Massachusetts Gen. Hospital, 463 U. S. 239 , 242
(1983); United Air Lines, Inc. v. Mahin, 410 U. S. 623 , 630–631
(1973). And we consequently deny the motion to dismiss the
writ.

															III

															   As our discussion in Part II, supra, makes clear, the federal question before us is a
narrow one. Do the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments grant Guzek a
constitutional right to present evidence of the kind he seeks to
introduce, namely new evidence that shows he was not
present at the scene of the crime. That evidence is inconsistent with Guzek’s prior conviction. It sheds no
light on the manner in which he committed the crime for
which he has been convicted. Nor is it evidence that Guzek contends
was unavailable to him at the time of the original trial. And, to
the extent it is evidence he introduced at that time, he is free to
introduce it now, albeit in transcript form. Ore. Rev. Stat.
§138.012(2)(b) (2003). We can find nothing in the Eighth or
Fourteenth Amendments that provides a capital defendant a right to
introduce new evidence of this kind at sentencing.

															   We cannot agree with the Oregon
Supreme Court that our previous cases have found in the Eighth
Amendment a constitutional right broad enough to encompass the
evidence here at issue. In Lockett v. Ohio,
supra , a plurality of this Court decided that a defendant
convicted of acting in concert with others to rob and to kill could
introduce at the sentencing stage evidence that she had played a
minor role in the crime, indeed, that she had remained outside the
shop (where the killing took place) at the time of the crime. A
plurality of the Court wrote that,

															“the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require that
the sentencer . . . 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.” Id., at 604 (emphasis added and deleted).

															And in Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U. S. 104 , the Court majority
adopted this statement. See also McCleskey v. Kemp, 481
U. S. 279 , 306 (1987); Bell v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 637 , 642
(1978) (plurality opinion).

															   But the evidence at issue in these cases was
traditional sentence-related evidence, evidence that tended to show how, not whether, the defendant committed the
crime. Nor was the evidence directly inconsistent with the jury’s
finding of guilt.

															   The Oregon Supreme Court thought that this
latter distinction—the fact that the “alibi evidence was
inconsistent with,” rather than “consistent with[,] the underlying
convictions”—did not matter. App. to Pet. for Cert. 58. It said
that this “factual distinction … is of no consequence in light of
the Supreme Court’s decision in Green v. Georgia. ” Ibid. In Green, however, the
Court focused upon a defendant convicted of murder, who sought to
introduce at sentencing a statement his confederate made to a third
party that he (the confederate) had alone committed the murder
( i.e. , without the defendant). The State opposed its use
at the defendant’s sentencing hearing on the ground that, as to
the defendant, it was hearsay. The Court, in a brief per
curiam opinion, noted that the State had used the confession
in the confederate’s trial, referred to an earlier case holding
that the Constitution forbids States from
“ ‘mechanistically’ ” applying the hearsay rule
“ ‘to defeat the ends of justice,’ ” and held that the
Constitution prohibited the State from barring use of the
confession. 442 U. S., at 97 (quoting Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U. S. 284 , 302
(1973)). The opinion focused only upon the hearsay problem, and it
implicitly assumed that, in the absence of the hearsay problem, state law would not have blocked admission of the
evidence. In any event, subsequent to Green, this Court decided Franklin v. Lynaugh , 487 U. S. 164 (1988)
(plurality opinion), and that case makes clear, contrary to the
Oregon Supreme Court’s understanding, that this Court’s previous
cases had not interpreted the Eighth Amendment as
providing a capital defendant the right to introduce at sentencing
evidence designed to cast “residual doubt” on his guilt of the
basic crime of conviction. The Franklin plurality said it
was “quite doubtful” that any such right existed. Id. , at
173, n. 6. And two other Members of the Court added that
“[o]ur cases” do not support any such “right to reconsideration by
the sentencing body of lingering doubts about … guilt.” Id. , at 187 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment). See
also Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302 , 320
(1989) (characterizing Franklin as a case in which a
majority “agreed that ‘residual doubt’ as to Franklin’s guilt was
not a constitutionally mandated mitigating factor” (brackets
omitted)). Franklin did not resolve whether the
Eighth Amendment affords capital defendants such a right, for the
plurality held that the sentencing scheme at issue was
constitutional “even if such a right existed.” 487 U. S.em>., at
174. But the Court’s statements on the matter make clear that the
Oregon Supreme Court erred in interpreting Green as
providing a capital defendant with a constitutional right to
introduce residual doubt evidence at sentencing.

															   In this case, we once again face a situation
where we need not resolve whether such a right exists, for, even if
it does, it could not extend so far as to provide this defendant
with a right to introduce the evidence at issue. See, e.g., Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450 , 461–462
(1945).    The Eighth Amendment insists upon
“ ‘reliability in the determination that death is the
appropriate punishment in a specific case.’ ” Penry,
supra, at 328 (quoting Woodson v. North
Carolina, 428
U. S. 280 , 305 (1976) (plurality opinion)). The Eighth
Amendment also insists that a sentencing jury be able “to consider
and give effect to mitigating evidence” about the defendant’s
“character or record or the circumstances of the offense.” Penry, supra, at 327–328. But the Eighth Amendment does
not deprive the State of its authority to set reasonable limits
upon the evidence a defendant can submit, and to control the manner
in which it is submitted. Rather, “States are free to structure and
shape consideration of mitigating evidence ‘in an effort to achieve
a more rational and equitable administration of the death
penalty.’ ” Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370 , 377
(1990) (quoting Franklin, supra , at 181 (plurality
opinion)); see, e.g., Johnson v. Texas, 509 U. S. 350 ,
362 (1993); California v. Brown, 479 U. S. 538 , 543
(1987).

															   Three circumstances, taken together, convince
us that the State possesses the authority to regulate, through
exclusion, the evidence that Guzek seeks to present. First,
sentencing traditionally concerns how, not whether, a defendant committed the crime. See United
States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §1A1.1, editorial
note, §4(a), p. 4 (Nov. 2004). But the evidence at issue here—alibi
evidence—concerns only whether, not how, he did
so.

															   Second, the parties previously litigated the
issue to which the evidence is relevant—whether the defendant
committed the basic crime. The evidence thereby attacks a
previously determined matter in a proceeding at which, in
principle, that matter is not at issue. The law typically
discourages collateral attacks of this kind. Cf. Allen v. McCurry, 449
U. S. 90 , 94 (1980) (“As this Court and other courts have often
recognized, res judicata and collateral estoppel relieve parties of
the cost and vexation of multiple lawsuits, conserve judicial
resources, and, by preventing inconsistent decisions, encourage
reliance on adjudication”).

															   Third, the negative impact of a rule
restricting defendant’s ability to introduce new alibi
evidence is minimized by the fact that Oregon law gives the
defendant the right to present to the sentencing jury all the evidence of innocence from the original trial regardless. That
law permits the defendant to introduce at resentencing transcripts
and exhibits from his prior trial. Ore. Rev. Stat. §138.012(2)(b)
(2003). The defendant here has not claimed that the evidence at
issue was unavailable at the time of his original trial. Thus, he
need only have introduced it at that time to guarantee its
presentation (albeit through transcripts) to a resentencing jury as
well.

															   The legitimacy of these trial management and
evidentiary considerations, along with the typically minimal
adverse impact that a restriction would have on a defendant’s
ability to present his alibi claim at resentencing convinces us
that the Eighth Amendment does not protect defendant’s right to
present the evidence at issue here. We conclude that the Oregon
court was wrong in holding to the contrary.

															IV

															   Guzek also contends that, even if
the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments do not mandate the admission
of his mother’s testimony, he is entitled to introduce that
evidence to impeach his associates, whose earlier testimony the
government intends to introduce at resentencing. The Oregon Supreme
Court did not address this issue; nor do we believe it fairly
encompassed within the question presented. The Oregon courts are
free to consider it on remand should they believe it appropriate to
do so.

															V

															   For these reasons, we vacate the
judgment of the Oregon Supreme Court, and we remand the case for
proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Justice Alito took no
part in the consideration or decision of this case. SCALIA, J., CONCURRING IN JUDGMENT OREGON V. GUZEK 546 U. S. ____ (2006) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 04-928 OREGON, PETITIONER v. RANDY LEE GUZEK

															on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
oregon

															[February 22, 2006]

															   Justice Scalia, with whom Justice
Thomas joins, concurring in the judgment.

															   In this case, we have the
opportunity to put to rest, once for all, the mistaken notion that
the Eighth Amendment requires that a convicted capital defendant be
given the opportunity, at his sentencing hearing, to present
evidence and argument concerning residual doubts about his guilt.
Although the Court correctly holds that there is no Eighth
Amendment violation in this case, I would follow the Court’s logic
to its natural conclusion and reject all Eighth Amendment
residual-doubt claims.

															   I agree with the Court that we have
jurisdiction and should exercise it in this case. What requires me
to withhold agreement to the Court’s opinion is the last of the
“[t]hree circumstances” on which it relies, ante , at
8–9—namely, “the fact that Oregon law gives the defendant the right
to present to the sentencing jury all the evidence of
innocence from the original trial.” Ante , at 9 (emphasis
in original). The first two of the circumstances are alone
sufficient to dispose of the claim that the Eighth Amendment
guarantees a capital defendant a second opportunity, at
sentencing, to litigate his innocence. In fact, the Court’s third
“circumstance” is an analytical misfit in the company of the other
two. The first two—that “sentencing traditionally concerns how, not whether , a defendant committed the
crime,” ante , at 8, and that “the parties previously
litigated the issue to which the evidence is relevant,” ibid .—show that compelling the admission of
innocence-related evidence would be improper and unnecessary at a sentencing hearing. The third, by
contrast, suggests that there is no constitutional violation in
this case because enough of such evidence may be admitted
on remand. The latter factor would be relevant only if the former
two were not.

															   If we needed any third factor to justify our
holding, a better candidate would be that the claim we consider
here finds no support in our Nation’s legal history and traditions.
In 1986, Justice Marshall correctly observed that there had been
“few times in which any legitimacy has been given to the power of a
convicted capital defendant facing the possibility of a death
sentence to argue as a mitigating factor the chance that he might
be innocent.” Lockhart v. McCree , 476 U. S. 162 , 205
(dissenting opinion). Nothing has changed on that score in the last
20 years. On the contrary, in Franklin v. Lynaugh , 487 U. S. 164 (1988),
four Members of this Court noted that our “prior decisions . . .
fail to recognize a constitutional right to have such doubts
considered as a mitigating factor,” id. , at 174 (plurality
opinion). They were, moreover, “quite doubtful” that the purported
right existed, because it is “arguably inconsistent with the common
practice of allowing penalty-only trials on remand of cases where a
death sentence—but not the underlying conviction—is struck down on
appeal.” Id. , at 173, n. 6. Two other Members of the
Court would have rejected the claim outright. Id. , at 187
(O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment).

															   After Franklin , the lower courts have
unanimously denied constitutional claims like the one we consider
today. See, e.g. , Ziegler v. Crosby , 345
F. 3d 1300, 1310 (CA11 2003); Evans v. Thompson , 881 F. 2d 117, 121 (CA4 1989); Duest v. State , 855 So. 2d 33, 40–41 (Fla.
2003); Commonwealth v. Fisher , 572 Pa. 105,
115–116, 813 A. 2d 761, 767 (2002); People v. Emerson , 189 Ill. 2d 436, 501–504, 727 N. E. 2d 302,
338–339 (2000); State v. Fletcher , 354 N. C.
455, 470–472, 555 S. E. 2d 534, 544 (2001); Melson v. State , 775 So. 2d 857, 898–899 (Ala. Crim. App.
1999). The last apparent scrap of authority for the contrary view
came from our cryptic opinion in Green v. Georgia , 442
U. S. 95 (1979) (per curiam), on which the Oregon
Supreme Court principally relied. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 58–62.
The chief virtue of today’s opinion lies in its discarding the
notion that Green provides any support for an Eighth
Amendment right to argue residual doubt at sentencing. See ante , at 6–7.

															   In mentioning, however, the superfluous
circumstance that Oregon law happens to provide for the admission
at sentencing of some evidence that relates to innocence,
the Court risks creating doubt where none should exist. Capital
defendants might now be tempted to argue that the amount of residual-doubt evidence carried over from the guilt phase in
their sentencing hearings is insufficient to satisfy the Court’s
third factor. Every one of these “residual-doubt” claims will be
meritless in light of the Court’s first two factors. We should make
this perfectly clear today.

Summary: The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the state of Oregon could limit the innocence-related evidence that Randy Lee Guzek, a convicted capital murder defendant, could introduce at his resentencing hearing. Guzek sought to introduce new live testimony from his mother about his alibi, but the Court held that this did not violate the Constitution. The Court considered the precedent, the legal history, and the traditions of the nation in its decision.