Appellate courts in States with weighing-type death penalty statutes have been using appellate reweighing for some time. Until Clemons, however, this reweighing was limited in practice to an examination of whether the evidence presented in the sentencing phase was enough for the sentencer to have imposed the death penalty. In order for an appellate court to make the determination of whether or not the sentencing authority's decision to impose the death penalty was justified, the appellate court had to reweigh the aggravating and mitigating factors and, in effect, make a sentencing decision for itself. The effect of Clemons v. Mississippi is not that appellate courts can now engage in reweighing mitigating and aggravating circumstances; rather, the effect of "Clemons" is that where appellate courts were once restricted to only using reweighing to vacate death sentences, they may now also use it to uphold death sentences. The decision expands the role that State appellate courts play in the death penalty decision process. 162 footnotes