Darden v. Wainwright

Justice Blackmun,

with whom Justice Brennan, Justice Marshall, and Justice Stevens join, dissenting.

Although the Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant only “a fair trial [and] not a perfect one,” Lutwak v. United States, 344 U. S. 604, 619 (1953); Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123, 135 (1968), this Court has stressed repeatedly in the decade since Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153 (1976), that the Eighth Amendment requires a heightened degree of reliability in any case where a State seeks to take the defend*189ant’s life.1 Today’s opinion, however, reveals a Court willing to tolerate not…