[1] At Bryan Lankford's trial, the prosecutor had explicitly told the judge that he would not seek the death penalty, and it was not discussed during the subsequent sentencing hearing.

The majority opinion was written by Justice John Paul Stevens and joined by Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Anthony Kennedy.

[2][6] After Marshall's death in January 1993, his Supreme Court papers were released to the public by the Library of Congress.

Jeffrey Rosen subsequently described how those papers had revealed that Marshall had originally voted at conference to affirm the Idaho Supreme Court's decision in Lankford.

[1][9] The case also created what has become known as the "Lankford notice exception", which states that if, after an arraignment of a criminal defendant, a prosecutor indicates to the judge that they will not seek the death penalty, it is an unconstitutional violation of due process to impose the death penalty on that defendant.