Whether the Texas death penalty statute, which limits the scope of mitigating evidence to that which reduces the defendant's 'moral blameworthiness,' can be reconciled with the Court's mitigation jurisprudence

QUESTIONS PRESENTED THIS IS A CAPITAL CASE The mitigation evidence offered at Brian Suniga’s trial showed that he had grown up in a family fraught with alcohol abuse, violence, sexual trauma and criminality. Despite his own substance abuse problems, Mr. Suniga was affectionate to family members and had looked after his severely-alcoholic father during his final illness. However, the jury at Mr. Suniga’s death penalty sentencing trial was limited to considering only such mitigating evidence as might be regarded as reducing his “moral blameworthiness.”’ The jury was also deliberately misled about the impact that a single juror’s vote might play in dictating whether he would live or die. 1) Tennard v. Dretke, 542 U.S. 274 (2004) disavowed any requirement of a nexus between evidence introduced in mitigation of sentence in a death penalty case and the underlying offense. Tennard reaffirmed that relevant mitigation evidence is any “evidence... the sentencer could reasonably find warrants a sentence less than death” and that the jury must not be precluded from considering and giving effect to such evidence. Can the Texas death penalty statute, which instructs the jury to consider “the circumstances of the offense, the defendant’s character and background, and the personal moral culpability of the defendant,” but then limits the scope of the evidence that jurors consider mitigating to “evidence that a juror might regard as reducing the defendant’s moral blameworthiness,” be reconciled with this Court’s long-established mitigation jurisprudence? 2) This Court has repeatedly insisted on heightened standards of reliability in death penalty proceedings, including the requirement that a jury must not be misled regarding the role it plays in the sentencing decision. Can the Texas death penalty statute, which requires the jury to be affirmatively misinformed about the impact of a single juror’s vote, and prevents the officers of the court from correcting that misstatement of the law, be reconciled with the Court’s teaching? i