In the case of Douglas McArthur Buchanan, Jr. v. Ronald J. Angelone et al., 1997, the U.S Supreme Court addressed whether a Virginia state court had violated Buchanan's constitutional rights by not instructing his jury about parole ineligibility during sentencing for capital murder charges. The defense argued that this information was crucial to prevent jurors from speculating that he might be released on parole if not sentenced to death, thus influencing their decision-making process towards a harsher penalty. However, the Supreme Court ruled against Buchanan in an 8-1 decision stating that due process does not require such instruction unless there is evidence of "misinformation or misunderstanding concerning parole law." As no such evidence existed in this case and because Virginia law did not allow consideration of future dangerousness as part of its sentencing procedure for capital cases at the time (unless raised by defendant), it was concluded that failure to provide instructions regarding parole eligibility did not violate Buchanan’s constitutional rights.

In the dissenting opinion for Buchanan v. Angelone, Justice Stevens argued that the jury instructions were inadequate and violated Buchanan's constitutional rights. He believed that the trial court failed to properly inform jurors about their ability to consider mitigating evidence when deciding whether or not to impose a death sentence. This failure, he contended, could have led them to believe they were only allowed to consider specific statutory factors in mitigation rather than all relevant evidence presented by defense counsel. As such, this may have unfairly tipped the scales against Buchanan during sentencing deliberations. Furthermore, Justice Stevens criticized majority’s reliance on prior cases as misplaced since those cases involved juries who had been given more comprehensive instructions regarding consideration of mitigating circumstances.