Whether the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals' rule that deems the accused's version of events irrelevant as a matter of law during sentencing proceedings violates the defendant's right to present his own version of events under Rock v. Arkansas

QUESTION PRESENTED: Oklahoma has jury sentencing in all felony cases, and those proceedings may be bifurcated. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (the “OCCA”) has the authority to remand for sentencing only, which it did here. An Oklahoma statute gives the accused the right to a sentencing jury trial in those circumstances. But through case law, the OCCA has adopted a rule of law— applied here—that deems the accused’s version of events irrelevant as a matter of law, even though the State and its witnesses can (and here did) testify extensively about those same events (for which sentence was being imposed). Is this principle of state evidence law contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, the clear rules set forth in Rock v. Arkansas, 483 U.S. 44 (1987) that (i) the “accused|] [has the] right to present his own version of events in his own words,” id. at 52, and (ii) a state’s restrictions on the defendant’s right to testify “may not be arbitrary or disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to serve,” id. at 55-56, as the District Court correctly found here. i