more responsible for the homicides, because they had instigated events and Beardslee had only acted out of fear of Rutherford. The trial court declared co-defendant sentences irrelevant to the disposition of Beardslee’s case and denied the motion. The California Supreme Court affirmed that co-defendant sentences were irrelevant to Beardslee’s proper punishment. Beardslee, 53 Cal.3d. at 111, 279 Cal.Rptr. at 300, 806 P.2d at 1335. The district court granted summary judgment to the State on similar grounds. Beardslee offers three arguments in support of admitting this evidence, but none of them is persuasive. First, he claims that co-defendants’ sentences may be “circumstances of the offense” within the meaning of Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 604, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978) (<HOLDING>). The State responds that this rule refers only
holding that juries may not be precluded from considering as a mitigating factor any aspect of a defendants character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death holding that a trial court must not preclude the jury from considering any aspect of the defendants character or circumstances as a mitigating factor holding that a sentencer must not be precluded from considering  any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers holding that juries may not be precluded from considering as a mitigating factor any aspect of a defendants character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers emphasis in original holding that sentencing scheme that permitted a limited range of mitigating evidence was unconstitutional because the eighth and fourteenth amendments require that the sentencer  not be precluded from considering as a mitigating factor any aspect of a defendants character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death