483 U.S. 66 (1987)
In 1958, respondent Raymond Wallace Shuman was convicted in a Nevada state court of first-degree murder for the shooting death of a truckdriver during a roadside robbery.1 He was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole under the version of Nevada Revised Statutes section 200.030 then in effect, which allowed the jury to choose between death or life imprisonment with or without parole.2
In 1975, while serving his life sentence, Shuman was convicted of capital murder for the killing of a fellow inmate.3 The revised version of section 200.030 enacted in 1973 mandated a death sentence for any life-term inmate convicted of murder, and the trial judge imposed that sentence.4
The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed Shuman's conviction and death sentence in 1978, rejecting his claim that the mandatory death penalty violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.5 Shuman then filed an unsuccessful state habeas petition.6
After exhausting state remedies, Shuman petitioned for federal habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. section 2254 in the Federal District Court.7 The District Court rejected all claims except the challenge to the mandatory death sentence, which it held unconstitutional in 1983 and ordered vacated while noting the State could pursue resentencing.8
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court's judgment in 1986.9 The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1986 to address the constitutionality of the mandatory capital-sentencing statute applied to Shuman.10
Whether a statute that mandates the death penalty for a prison inmate who is convicted of murder while serving a life sentence without possibility of parole comports with the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments?11
The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require individualized capital-sentencing procedures.12 These procedures must permit the sentencing authority to consider any relevant mitigating circumstances before imposing a death sentence.13 The fundamental respect for humanity underlying the Eighth Amendment makes such consideration a constitutionally indispensable part of the process.14
No. The established facts demonstrate that the Nevada statute mandated death for Shuman solely upon proof that he was serving a life sentence without possibility of parole and was convicted of murdering a fellow inmate.15 There was no mechanism for the sentencer to consider mitigating evidence. The statute treated these two elements as conclusive.16 It required the trial judge to impose death without hearing evidence about the circumstances of the predicate offense, Shuman's non-triggerman role in 1958, his fifteen years of prison conduct, or the provocation in the 1975 incident.17 This categorical preclusion of mitigating factors directly contravenes the constitutional mandate that the sentencer must be allowed to evaluate the character and record of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular offense.18
The statute therefore created the precise risk that death would be imposed in spite of factors calling for a less severe penalty.19
The mandatory death penalty statute does not comport with the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.20
Related opinions on this issue
Justice White dissented.21 He contended that the Constitution permits a state legislature to determine, in this narrow class of cases, that no amount of mitigating evidence could ever outweigh the aggravating factors when an inmate serving life for a prior murder commits another murder.22 An inmate who is legally responsible for the new killing has no constitutional right to persuade a sentencer to impose essentially no punishment at all.23
The mandatory scheme preserves the full deterrent effect of the death penalty by preventing any possibility that mitigating evidence will reduce the sentence.24