NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 20–443
_________________
UNITED STATES, PETITIONER
v. DZHOKHAR A. TSARNAEV
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the first circuit
[March 4, 2022]
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.
On April 15, 2013, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev planted and detonated two homemade pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The blasts hurled nails and metal debris into the assembled crowd, killing three while maiming and wounding hundreds. Three days later, the brothers murdered a campus police officer, carjacked a graduate student, and fired on police who had located them in the stolen vehicle. Dzhokhar attempted to flee in the vehicle but inadvertently killed Tamerlan by running him over. Dzhokhar was soon arrested and indicted.
A jury found Dzhokhar guilty of 30 federal crimes and recommended the death penalty for 6 of them. The District Court accordingly sentenced Dzhokhar to death. The Court of Appeals vacated the death sentence. We now reverse.
I
A
The Tsarnaev brothers immigrated to the United States in the early 2000s and lived in Massachusetts. Little more than a decade later, they were actively contemplating how to wage radical jihad. They downloaded and read al Qaeda propaganda, and, by December of 2012, began studying an al Qaeda guide to bomb making.
On April 15, 2013, the brothers went to the Boston Marathon finish line on Boylston Street. They each brought a backpack containing a homemade pressure-cooker bomb packed with explosives inside a layer of nails, BBs, and other metal scraps. Tamerlan left his backpack in a crowd of spectators and walked away. Dzhokhar stood with his backpack outside the Forum, a nearby restaurant where spectators watched the runners from the sidewalk and dining patio. For four minutes, Dzhokhar surveyed the crowd. After speaking with Tamerlan by phone, Dzhokhar left his backpack among the spectators. Tamerlan then detonated his bomb. While the crowd at the Forum looked toward the explosion, Dzhokhar walked the other way. After a few seconds, he detonated his bomb.
Each detonation sent fire and shrapnel in all directions. The blast from Tamerlan’s bomb shattered Krystle Campbell’s left femur and mutilated her legs. Though bystanders tried to save her, she bled to death on the sidewalk. Dzhokhar’s bomb ripped open the legs of Boston University student Lingzi Lu. Rescuers tried to stem the bleeding by using a belt as a makeshift tourniquet. She too bled to death.
Eight-year-old Martin Richard absorbed the full blast of Dzhokhar’s bomb. BBs, nails, and other metal fragments shot through his abdomen, cutting through his aorta, spinal cord, spleen, liver, pancreas, left kidney, and large intestines. The blast propelled shrapnel with such force that it exited his back. Other shrapnel nearly severed his left hand. The explosion also caused third-degree burns. Martin ultimately died from blood loss.
Dzhokhar’s and Tamerlan’s bombs maimed and wounded hundreds of other victims. Many people lost limbs, including Martin’s 6-year-old sister, Jane. Many more would have died if not for the swift action of citizens and first responders.
After fleeing the scene, the brothers returned to their normal lives. Dzhokhar attended his college classes the next day. He went to the gym with friends. He posted online that he was “a stress free kind of guy.” App. 145. Several days later, on April 18, after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released images of the suspected bombers, a friend saw the images and texted Dzhokhar. Dzhokhar responded: “Better not text me my friend. Lol.”
Id., at 146.
Recognizing that investigators were closing in on them, Dzhokhar met up with Tamerlan that evening. The brothers collected more homemade bombs and a handgun and loaded them into Tamerlan’s car. While driving past the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, they saw 27-year-old campus police officer Sean Collier sitting in his patrol car. They approached his car and shot him five times at close range, including once between the eyes. With Collier dead, the brothers tried to steal his service pistol but were unable to remove it from the holster. They then carjacked and robbed another man, Dun Meng, who was driving his SUV home from work. When the brothers forced Meng to stop at a gas station for fuel and snacks, he fled on foot. The brothers briefly chased him but gave up and made off with Meng’s SUV.
Meng contacted the police, who used the SUV’s GPS device to track the Tsarnaevs. When officers found the brothers in Watertown a few hours later, a street battle ensued. Tamerlan fired on the officers with a handgun, while Dzhokhar threw homemade bombs. When Tamerlan’s handgun ran out of ammunition, officers subdued him. As they tried to handcuff Tamerlan, Dzhokhar returned to the SUV and sped towards the officers. They evaded the SUV. Tamerlan did not. Dzhokhar ran over Tamerlan and dragged him roughly 30 feet down the road. Tamerlan disentangled from the undercarriage when Dzhokhar rammed a police cruiser before escaping. Tamerlan died soon after from his injuries.
Dzhokhar abandoned the SUV a few blocks away. He found a covered boat in a nearby backyard. Taking shelter inside, he carved the words “stop killing our innocent people, and we will stop” into the planking.
Id., at 151. He also wrote a manifesto in pencil on the bulkhead of the boat’s cockpit justifying his actions and welcoming his expected martyrdom. The next day, the boat’s owner found him. Police eventually forced Dzhokhar out of the boat and arrested him.
B
A federal grand jury indicted Dzhokhar for 30 crimes, 17 of which were capital offenses. In preparation for jury selection, the parties jointly proposed a 100-question form to screen the prospective jurors. The District Court adopted almost all of them, including many that probed for bias. For example, some of the District Court’s questions asked whether a prospective juror had a close association with law enforcement. Others asked whether a prospective juror had strong feelings about Islam, Chechens, or the several Central Asian regions with which the Tsarnaevs were connected. Still others asked whether the prospective juror had a personal connection to the bombing.
Several questions also probed whether media coverage might have biased a prospective juror. One question asked if the prospective juror had “formed an opinion” about the case because of what he had “seen or read in the news media.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 373a. Others asked about the source, amount, and timing of the person’s media consumption. Still another asked whether the prospective juror had commented or posted online about the bombings.
The District Court did reject one media-related question. The proposed questionnaire had asked each prospective juror to list the facts he had learned about the case from the media and other sources. Concerned that such a broad, “unfocused” question would “cause trouble” by producing “unmanageable data” of minimal value that would come to dominate the entire
voir dire, the District Court declined to include it in the questionnaire. App. 480–481. After Dzhokhar objected to the removal, the District Court further explained that the question was “too unguided.”
Id., at 486.
Recognizing the intense public interest in the case, the District Court summoned an expanded jury pool. In early January 2015, the court called 1,373 prospective jurors for the first round of jury selection. After reviewing their answers to the questionnaire, the court reduced the pool to 256. As jury selection began in earnest, Dzhokhar renewed his request that the court ask each juror about the content of the media he had consumed. The District Court again refused Dzhokhar’s blanket request and instead permitted counsel to ask appropriate followup questions about a prospective juror’s media consumption based on the answers to questions in the questionnaire or at
voir dire. Several times, the court permitted Dzhokhar’s attorneys to follow up on a prospective juror’s earlier answers with specific questions about what the juror had seen or heard in the news. Over the course of three weeks of in-person questioning, the District Court and the parties reduced the 256 prospective jurors down to 12 seated jurors.
After the District Court seated the jury, the case went to trial. Dzhokhar did not contest his guilt and the jury thus returned a guilty verdict on all counts. During the sentencing phase, the Government argued that Dzhokhar’s crimes warranted the death penalty. Dzhokhar’s mitigation theory centered on the idea that Tamerlan masterminded the bombing. According to Dzhokhar, he was not sufficiently culpable to warrant the death penalty because his older brother had pressured him to participate.
To prove Tamerlan’s domineering nature, Dzhokhar sought to introduce hearsay evidence of a crime Tamerlan allegedly had committed years earlier. Specifically, FBI agents investigating the bombings had come to suspect that Tamerlan’s friend, Ibragim Todashev, possessed information about an unsolved triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts, where a non-Muslim acquaintance of Tamerlan’s and two others were found bound, robbed, and murdered with a knife. When agents went to interview Todashev about a month after the bombings, Todashev initially denied any involvement. Yet, when pressed, he told the agents that Tamerlan had hatched a plan to rob the three Waltham victims of drug proceeds on the night of September 11, 2011. According to Todashev, he and Tamerlan traveled to Waltham, held the men at gunpoint, and duct-taped their hands, feet, and mouths. After taking the money, Tamerlan insisted on killing the three men. According to Todashev, after he disagreed, Tamerlan told him to wait outside while Tamerlan cut their throats with a knife. The agents offered Todashev a pen and paper to write out his confession. Todashev instead attacked the agents, who killed him in self-defense. The FBI later used Todashev’s statement to obtain a search warrant for a follow-on search of Tamerlan’s car.
In the lead-up to trial, the prosecution told Dzhokhar’s counsel what Todashev had said but did not turn over the recording of the interview or the FBI reports. The prosecution also disclosed that Dias Kadyrbayev, a friend of Dzhokhar’s facing federal obstruction charges in connection with the bombing, told the investigators that Dzhokhar knew about Tamerlan’s involvement in the murders. Meanwhile, Government analysts found evidence that someone had searched for information about the Waltham murders from Tamerlan’s wife’s computer a week after they took place. Government investigators also found jihadi propaganda advocating theft from non-Muslim “infidels.”
Id., at 639.
Before trial, Dzhokhar filed a motion to compel production of the evidence, which the court denied. The Government filed a motion
in limine to exclude any reference to the Waltham murders, contending that the evidence was irrelevant, or at least so lacking in probative value and so likely to confuse the issues that the court should exclude it. The District Court granted the Government’s motion
in limine. As the District Court saw things, the evidence did not show what Tamerlan’s role was and, with Todashev dead, no further line of inquiry remained. The available information was “without any probative value” and “would be confusing to the jury and a waste of time.”
Id., at 650.
When the sentencing proceedings finished, the jury concluded that Dzhokhar warranted the death penalty for 6 of the 17 death-penalty-eligible crimes, despite Dzhokhar’s argument that Tamerlan was more culpable. The District Court accordingly sentenced Dzhokhar to death.
C
The Court of Appeals vacated Dzhokhar’s capital sentence on two grounds. See 968 F.3d 24, 35 (CA1 2020). First, the Court of Appeals held that the District Court abused its discretion during jury selection by declining to ask every prospective juror what he learned from the media about the case.
Id., at 54–62.
According to the panel, such questions were required by that court’s 1968 decision in
Patriarca v.
United States, 402 F.2d 314 (CA1), which had mandated this
voir dire rule “in the exercise of [the court of appeals’] discretionary supervisory powers, not as a matter of constitutional law.” 968 F. 3d, at 60. The Court of Appeals ruled that the District Court’s failure to comply with
Patriarca was “an error of law and so an abuse of discretion.” 968 F. 3d, at 59.
Second, the panel held that the District Court abused its discretion when it excluded from sentencing the evidence concerning Tamerlan’s possible involvement in the Waltham murders.
Id., at 63–73.
The panel believed that the evidence was sufficiently probative of Tamerlan’s ability to influence Dzhokhar.
Id., at 69–70. We granted certiorari, 592 U. S. ___ (2021).
II
The Government argues that the Court of Appeals improperly vacated Dzhokhar’s capital sentences based on the juror questionnaire and the Waltham evidence. We agree.
A
The
Sixth Amendment guarantees “the accused” the right to a trial “by an impartial jury.” The right to an “impartial” jury “does not require
ignorance.”
Skilling v.
United States,
561 U.S. 358, 381 (2010). Notorious crimes are “almost, as a matter of necessity, brought to the attention” of those informed citizens who are “best fitted” for jury duty.
Reynolds v.
United States,
98 U.S. 145, 155–156 (1879). A trial court protects the defendant’s
Sixth Amendment right by ensuring that jurors have “no bias or prejudice that would prevent them from returning a verdict according to the law and evidence.”
Connors v.
United States,
158 U.S. 408, 413 (1895).
We have repeatedly said that jury selection falls “ ‘particularly within the province of the trial judge.’ ”
Skilling, 561 U. S., at 386 (quoting
Ristaino v.
Ross,
424 U.S. 589, 595 (1976)); see also,
e.g.,
Mu’Min v.
Virginia,
500 U.S. 415, 424 (1991);
Connors, 158 U. S., at 413. That is so because a trial “judge’s appraisal is ordinarily influenced by a host of factors impossible to capture fully in the record,” such as a “prospective juror’s inflection, sincerity, demeanor, candor, body language, and apprehension of duty.”
Skilling, 561 U. S., at 386. A trial court’s broad discretion in this area includes deciding what questions to ask prospective jurors. See
Mu’min, 500 U. S., at 427 (“our own cases have stressed the wide discretion granted to the trial court in conducting
voir dire in the area of pretrial publicity”).
A court of appeals reviews the district court’s questioning of prospective jurors only for abuse of discretion. See,
e.g.,
Skilling, 561 U. S., at 387, n. 20;
Mu’Min, 500 U. S., at 427;
Rosales-Lopez v.
United States,
451 U.S. 182, 189 (1981) (plurality opinion);
Ristaino, 424 U. S., at 594;
Ham v.
South Carolina,
409 U.S. 524, 527 (1973);
Connors, 158 U. S., at 413. That discretion does not vanish when a case garners public attention. Indeed, “[w]hen pretrial publicity is at issue, ‘primary reliance on the judgment of the trial court makes [especially] good sense.’ ”
Skilling, 561 U. S., at 386 (quoting
Mu’Min, 500 U. S, at 427; alteration in
Skilling). After all, “the judge ‘sits in the locale where the publicity is said to have had its effect’ and may base her evaluation on her ‘own perception of the depth and extent of news stories that might influence a juror.’ ”
Ibid. (quoting
Mu’Min, 500 U. S., at 427). Because conducting
voir dire is committed to the district court’s sound discretion, there is no blanket constitutional requirement that it must ask each prospective juror what he heard, read, or saw about a case in the media.
Mu’Min, 500 U. S., at 417. Instead, as in any case, the district court’s duty is to conduct a thorough jury-selection process that allows the judge to evaluate whether each prospective juror is “to be believed when he says he has not formed an opinion about the case.”
Id., at 425.
The District Court did not abuse its broad discretion by declining to ask about the content and extent of each juror’s media consumption regarding the bombings. The court recognized the significant pretrial publicity concerning the bombings, and reasonably concluded that the proposed media-content question was “unfocused,” risked producing “unmanageable data,” and would at best shed light on “preconceptions” that other questions already probed. App. 480–481. At
voir dire, the court further explained that it did not want to be “too tied to a script” because “[e]very juror is different” and had to be “questioned in a way that [was] appropriate” to the juror’s earlier answers.
Id., at 498. The court was concerned that a media-content question had “the wrong emphasis,” focusing on what a juror knew before coming to court, rather than on potential bias.
Id., at 502. Based on “years” of trial experience, the court concluded that jurors who came in with some prior knowledge would still be able to act impartially and “hold the government to its proof.”
Id., at 502–503. The District Court’s decision was reasonable and well within its discretion, as our precedents make clear. See
Mu’Min, 500 U. S., at 427.
If any doubt remained, the rest of the jury-selection process dispels it. The District Court summoned an expanded jury pool of 1,373 prospective jurors and used the 100- question juror form to cull that down to 256. The questionnaire asked prospective jurors what media sources they followed, how much they consumed, whether they had ever commented on the bombings in letters, calls, or online posts, and, most pointedly, whether any of that information had caused the prospective juror to form an opinion about Dzhokhar’s guilt or punishment. The court then subjected those 256 prospective jurors to three weeks of individualized
voir dire in which the court and both parties had the opportunity to ask additional questions and probe for bias. Dzhokhar’s attorneys asked several prospective jurors what they had heard, read, or seen about the case in the media. The District Court also provided “ ‘emphatic and clear instructions on the sworn duty of each juror to decide the issues only on evidence presented in open court.’ ”
Skilling, 561 U. S
., at 388, n. 21 (quoting
Nebraska Press Assn. v.
Stuart,
427 U.S. 539, 564 (1976)). The court reminded the prospective jurors that they “must be able to decide the issues in the case based on the information or evidence that is presented in the course of the trial, not on information from any other sources,” App. 283,
an instruction the court gave during
voir dire and repeated during the trial. In sum, the court’s jury selection process was both eminently reasonable and wholly consistent with this Court’s precedents.
The Court of Appeals erred in holding otherwise. As it saw things, its decision nearly 50 years prior in
Patriarca had,
pursuant to its “supervisory authority,” required district courts presiding over high-profile cases to ask about the “ ‘kind and degree of [the prospective juror’s] exposure to the case or the parties.’ ” 968 F. 3d, at 57 (quoting
Patriarca, 402 F. 2d, at 318; emphasis deleted). And because
Patriarca purportedly set forth a “rule,” the District Court’s failure to follow it was “an error of law and so an abuse of discretion.” 968 F. 3d, at 59.
It is true that some of our precedents describe a “supervisory authority” that inheres in federal courts. See,
e.g.,
McNabb v.
United States,
318 U.S. 332, 343–345 (1943);
Cupp v.
Naughten,
414 U.S. 141, 146 (1973).[
1] But the Court’s precedents have also identified clear limits when lower courts have purported to invoke that authority. For example, supervisory rules cannot conflict with or circumvent a constitutional provision or federal statute.
Thomas v.
Arn,
474 U.S. 140, 148 (1985). Nor can they conflict with or circumvent a Federal Rule.
Carlisle v.
United States,
517 U.S. 416, 426 (1996). Finally, and most relevant here, lower courts cannot create prophylactic supervisory rules that circumvent or supplement legal standards set out in decisions of this Court.
United States v.
Payner,
447 U.S. 727, 733–737 (1980).
Payner exemplifies this last limit. There, a Federal District Court asserted supervisory power to suppress illegally seized evidence even when the seizure violated a third party’s
Fourth Amendment rights, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision.
Id., at 733. This Court reversed, explaining that its
Fourth Amendment jurisprudence had “established beyond any doubt” that a defendant could not assert a third party’s
Fourth Amendment injury in order to suppress evidence.
Id., at 735. “Were we to accept this use of the supervisory power,” the Court reasoned, “we would confer on the judiciary discretionary power to disregard the considered limitations of the law it is charged with enforcing.”
Id.,
at 737. Simply put, “the supervisory power does not extend so far.”
Ibid.
Nor does any supervisory power extend as the Court of Appeals appears to suggest in this case. This Court has held many times that a district court enjoys broad discretion to manage jury selection, including what questions to ask prospective jurors. See,
e.g.,
Skilling, 561 U. S., at 387, n. 20;
Mu’Min, 500 U. S., at 427;
Ristaino, 424 U. S., at 594;
Ham, 409 U. S., at 527;
Connors, 158 U. S., at 413. As the Court of Appeals acknowledged, our cases establish that a reviewing court may set aside a district court’s questioning only for an abuse of discretion. See 968 F. 3d, at 56. The Court of Appeals declined to apply that settled standard of review. Rather than ask whether media-content questions were necessary in light of the District Court’s exhaustive
voir dire, the Court of Appeals resurrected
Patriarca, handed down a purported legal rule that media-content questions are required in all high-profile cases, and then concluded that the District Court committed a legal error when it failed to comply with that rule. See 968 F. 3d, at 57–59. But a court of appeals cannot supplant the district court’s broad discretion to manage
voir dire by prescribing specific lines of questioning, and thereby circumvent a well-established standard of review. Whatever the “supervisory power” entails, it does not countenance the Court of Appeals’ use of it.
B
The Court of Appeals’ second reason for vacating Dzhokhar’s capital sentences—that the District Court erred in excluding from the sentencing proceedings evidence of the Waltham murders—fares no better.
The Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA) sets out a comprehensive scheme by which federal district courts adjudicate, review, and impose death sentences. See 18 U. S. C. §§3591
et seq. Section 3593 provides that, at the sentencing phase of a capital trial, “information may be presented as to any matter relevant to the sentence, including any mitigating or aggravating factor.” §3593(c). “Information is admissible regardless of its admissibility under the rules governing admission of evidence at criminal trials.”
Ibid.
That said, FDPA proceedings are not evidentiary free-for-alls. The district court may exclude information under the FDPA “if its probative value is outweighed by the danger of creating unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, or misleading the jury.”
Ibid. We review these evidentiary exclusions for abuse of discretion. See,
e.g.,
United States v.
Abel,
469 U.S. 45, 54 (1984);
Sprint/United Management Co. v.
Mendelsohn,
552 U.S. 379, 384 (2008); 1 R. Mosteller et al., McCormick on Evidence §185, p. 1125 (8th ed. 2020).
Here, during sentencing, Dzhokhar sought to introduce evidence linking Tamerlan to the unsolved Waltham murders. He argued that the evidence supported his mitigation defense that Tamerlan was the ringleader. The District Court acknowledged Dzhokhar’s rationale but excluded the evidence because it was “without any probative value” and “would be confusing to the jury.” App. 650. See
18 U. S. C. §3593(c).
That conclusion was reasonable and not an abuse of the District Court’s discretion. Dzhokhar sought to divert the sentencing jury’s attention to a triple homicide that Tamerlan allegedly committed years prior, though there was no allegation that Dzhokhar had any role in that crime. Nor was there any way to confirm or verify the relevant facts, since all of the parties involved were dead. As the District Court explained, “there simply [was] insufficient evidence to describe [any] participation Tamerlan may have had” or “tel[l] who played what role, if they played roles.” App. 650. The District Court did not abuse its discretion when finding that the evidence lacked probative value, would confuse the jury, and ultimately would be nothing more than “a waste of time.”
Ibid.
Dzhokhar and the dissent offer several counterarguments, none of which is convincing. First, Dzhokhar suggests that §3593(c) violates the
Eighth Amendment if its balancing test operates to exclude any relevant mitigating evidence. See Brief for Respondent 17, 31; Tr. of Oral Arg. 85–88. His argument depends on a line of cases rooted in
Lockett v.
Ohio,
438 U.S. 586 (1978), and
Eddings v.
Oklahoma,
455 U.S. 104 (1982),[
2] which “requir[e] the sentencer to consider mitigating circumstances when deciding whether to impose the death penalty.”
Jones v.
Mississippi, 593 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 17). Dzhokhar suggests that a district court violates the
Eighth Amendment under these precedents if it excludes any marginally relevant mitigating evidence that fails the §3593(c) balancing test. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 85–88.
Our cases do not support Dzhokhar’s extreme position. “ ‘
Lockett and its progeny stand only for the proposition that a State may not cut off in an absolute manner the presentation of mitigating evidence, either by statute or judicial instruction, or by limiting the inquiries to which it is relevant so severely that the evidence could never be part of the sentencing decision at all.’ ”
Johnson v.
Texas,
509 U.S. 350, 361 (1993) (quoting
McKoy v.
North Carolina,
494 U.S. 433, 456 (1990) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment)). We read that principle to coexist with the overarching goal “that, above all, capital sentencing must be reliable, accurate, and nonarbitrary.”
Saffle v.
Parks,
494 U.S. 484, 493 (1990); accord,
California v.
Brown,
479 U.S. 538, 541 (1987). Thus, “[o]ur capital sentencing jurisprudence seeks to reconcile [these] two competing . . . principles”—“to allow mitigating evidence to be considered and to guide the discretion of the sentencer.”
Johnson, 509 U. S., at 373. To effectively reconcile these objectives, “[w]e need only conclude that it is consistent with the
Eighth Amendment for [the Federal Government] to channel the sentencer’s consideration of a defendant’s arguably mitigating evidence so as to limit the relevance of that evidence in any reasonable manner, so long as the [Federal Government] does not deny the defendant a full and fair opportunity to apprise the sentencer of all constitutionally relevant circumstances.”
Graham v.
Collins,
506 U.S. 461, 498–499 (1993) (Thomas, J., concurring).
Because the States and the Federal Government “retain ‘the traditional authority’ ” “to decide that certain types of evidence may have insufficient probative value to justify their admission,” they may enact reasonable rules governing whether specific pieces of evidence are admissible.
Skipper v.
South Carolina,
476 U.S. 1, 11, 15 (1986) (Powell, J., concurring in judgment) (quoting
Lockett, 438 U. S., at 604, n. 12). Moreover, we have expressly held that “the
Eighth Amendment does not deprive” a sovereign “of its authority to set reasonable limits upon the evidence a [capital] defendant can submit, and control the manner in which it is submitted.”
Oregon v.
Guzek,
546 U.S. 517, 526 (2006).
Congress’ passage of §3593(c) falls well within that traditional authority. Section 3593(c) sets up a highly permissive regime that allows criminal defendants to introduce a wide range of normally inadmissible evidence. The statute channels that evidence through an individualized balancing test that affords a capital defendant every reasonable opportunity to place relevant mitigating evidence before the penalty-phase jury. Unlike the statute challenged in
Lockett or the sentencer’s decision challenged in
Eddings,
§3593(c) does not put any category of mitigating evidence beyond the sentencer’s purview. Rather, §3593(c) preserves the traditional gatekeeping function of district court judges to consider and assess specific pieces of relevant evidence in light of its probative value and the risks it poses to the jury’s truth-seeking function. The court weighs all proffered evidence to determine whether it will assist the jury in considering any grounds for mitigation.
Put simply, §3593(c) “does not deny the defendant a full and fair opportunity to apprise the sentencer of all constitutionally relevant circumstances.”
Graham, 506 U. S. at 498–499 (Thomas, J., concurring). It therefore does not offend the
Eighth Amendment.
Dzhokhar alternatively disagrees with the balance that the District Court struck here under §3593(c), arguing that the Waltham evidence was “highly probative” to his mitigation defense. Brief for Respondent 17. On his telling, the evidence showed that Tamerlan was a leader who pressured others to commit violence. But the District Court considered that argument and rejected it after reasonably explaining that “[t]here’s just no way of telling who played what role, if they played roles,” from the sparse and unreliable information before the court. App. 650. It was “as plausible . . . that Todashev was the bad guy and Tamerlan was the minor actor.”
Ibid. In other words, the evidence did not tend to show that Tamerlan acted as the leader who pressured Todashev into committing the crime. And it certainly did not show that, almost two years later, Tamerlan led and dominated Dzhokhar in a manner that would mitigate Dzhokhar’s guilt.
Dzhokhar further opines that he might have reduced juror confusion by putting the information before the jury in a “streamlined” manner. Brief for Respondent 32. But “[i]t is important that a reviewing court evaluate the trial court’s decision from its perspective when it had to rule” rather than “indulge in review by hindsight.”
Old Chief v.
United States,
519 U.S. 172, 182, n. 6 (1997). Here, Dzhokhar did not alert the District Court to any possible “streamlined” approach, instead suggesting that, if the court admitted the Waltham evidence, he would submit additional evidence and possibly seek third-party discovery. Moreover, Dzhokhar could not have unilaterally dictated how the proceeding would progress because the Government would have been “permitted to rebut any information received at the hearing” with evidence of its own.
18 U. S. C. §3593(c). So no matter how Dzhokhar presented the evidence, its bare inclusion risked producing a confusing mini-trial where the only witnesses who knew the truth were dead. The District Court did not abuse its discretion by declining to lead the jury into this evidentiary detour.
Finally, Dzhokhar argues that since the Government apparently considered Todashev’s statement to the FBI agents reliable enough to justify its reference in a search warrant affidavit, Todashev’s statements were necessarily reliable enough to be presented to the jury as mitigating evidence. See Brief for Respondent 27–28; see also
post, at 8 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (contending that the warrant “strongly suggests” the District Court abused its discretion). We fail to see why. The District Court here did not sign the warrant or the affidavit. Whatever probable-cause assessment the FBI agent and the Magistrate Judge made, the District Court was free to evaluate the information independently when deciding whether to admit it under §3593(c). As explained, that evaluation was not an abuse of discretion.
For its part, the dissent subjects the District Court’s decision to exclude the Waltham evidence to a more stringent standard of review and, based on its independent review of the record, would reverse.
Post, at 5–16. While the dissent acknowledges that district courts enjoy “significant discretion” when making evidentiary decisions,
post, at 5, it nevertheless argues that the death penalty context here requires us to scrutinize the District Court’s decision with “particular judicial care,”
post, at 15.
In doing so, the dissent ignores our traditional standard for appellate review of evidentiary determinations.[
3] Deference is the “hallmark of [the] abuse-of-discretion review” applicable to such decisions.
General Elec. Co. v.
Joiner,
522 U.S. 136, 143 (1997). A “reviewing court” applying that standard “must not substitute its judgment for that of the district court.”
Horne v.
Flores,
557 U.S. 433, 493 (2009) (Breyer, J., dissenting). Rather, an appellate court must defer to the lower court’s “sound judgment,” so long as its decision falls within its “wide discretion,”
Abel, 469 U. S., at 54, and is not “ ‘manifestly erroneous,’ ”
Joiner, 522 U. S., at 142 (quoting
Spring Co. v.
Edgar,
99 U.S. 645, 658 (1879)). Even in the death penalty context, this traditional abuse-of-discretion standard applies.
Yet here, the dissent proposes to independently reevaluate the District Court’s decision to exclude the Waltham evidence under §3593(c). In particular, the dissent joins Dzhokhar in critiquing the District Court’s conclusion that the risk of confusing the jury outweighed the probative value of that evidence. See
post, at 10–15. The dissent thinks it was the “District Court’s strongest reason” for excluding the evidence,
post, at 10, but it discounts the District Court’s conclusion for two reasons. Neither is compelling, especially under the deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.
First, the dissent suggests that because “death penalty proceedings are special,” district courts should be more hesitant to find a risk of confusion in this context than in others.
Post, at 11. But the dissent identifies nothing in the text of the FDPA to support its position. Congress defined what considerations district courts must balance when making admissibility determinations under §3593(c), and it chose to define one using a term familiar in the law of evidence—“confusing the issues.” Compare §3593(c) with Federal Rule of Evidence 403; see also Mosteller, McCormick on Evidence §185, at 1119 (noting “common law power of the judge to exclude relevant evidence” to forestall “ ‘confusion of the issues’ ”). Nothing suggests that Congress intended district courts to evaluate that concern differently under the FDPA.
Second, the dissent points out that district courts sometimes allow the Government to present evidence of a capital defendant’s past bad acts during sentencing proceedings, despite the risk of evidentiary minitrials. See
post, at 13–15. But many of those cases focused on the defendant’s own conduct, not someone else’s. See
ibid. In such cases, the Government need only put on evidence tending to show that the defendant committed the past bad act. See,
e.g., United States v.
Umaña, 750 F.3d 320, 348–349 (CA4 2014).
Here, the evidentiary showing would be substantially more complex and confusing. No one alleges that Dzhokhar participated in the Waltham murders, and, as the District Court reasonably concluded, the evidence available sheds little light on what role (if any) Tamerlan actually played. See App. 650. To make his point at sentencing, then, Dzhokhar would first have to show, without any surviving witnesses, what role Tamerlan actually played. Then, he would have to establish that he learned of the Waltham crimes before planning the bombings. Finally, he would have to explain how his knowledge of Tamerlan’s role in a nearly 2-year-old violent robbery affected his own role in the bombings. Whatever other courts might think about an inquiry into a defendant’s own prior bad acts, this District Court reasonably thought that the Waltham murder inquiry risked confusing the jury in these proceedings. We see no basis to disturb that conclusion.
III
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes. The
Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He received one. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.