Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 90.0

40 

GLOSSIP v. GROSS 

BREYER, J., dissenting 
BREYER, J., dissenting 

cost  as  one  of  the  reasons  why  Nebraska  legislators  re­
cently  repealed  the  death  penalty  in  that  State);  cf.  Cali­
fornia  Commission  on  the  Fair  Administration  of  Justice, 
Report  and  Recommendations  on  the  Administration  of
the Death Penalty in California 117 (June 30, 2008) (death 
penalty costs California $137 million per year; a compara­
ble system of life imprisonment without parole would cost
$11.5  million  per  year),  online  at  http://www.ccfaj.org/rr­
dp-official.html;  Dáte,  The  High  Price  of  Killing  Killers, 
Palm  Beach  Post,  Jan.  4,  2000,  p.  1A  (cost  of  each  execu­
tion is $23 million above cost of life imprisonment without 
parole in Florida). 

The answer is that the matters I have discussed, such as 
lack  of  reliability,  the  arbitrary  application  of  a  serious
and  irreversible  punishment,  individual  suffering  caused 
by  long  delays,  and  lack  of  penological  purpose  are  quin­
tessentially judicial matters.  They concern the infliction—
indeed  the  unfair,  cruel,  and  unusual  infliction—of  a 
serious  punishment  upon  an  individual.    I  recognize  that
in 1972 this Court, in a sense, turned to Congress and the
state  legislatures  in  its  search  for  standards  that  would 
increase  the  fairness  and  reliability  of  imposing  a  death
penalty.  The legislatures responded.  But, in the last four 
decades,  considerable  evidence  has  accumulated  that 
those responses have not worked.

Thus  we  are  left  with  a  judicial  responsibility.    The 
Eighth  Amendment  sets  forth  the  relevant  law,  and  we 
must  interpret  that  law.    See  Marbury  v.  Madison,  1 
Cranch 137, 177 (1803); Hall, 572 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 
19) (“That exercise of independent judgment is the Court’s
judicial  duty”).    We  have  made  clear  that  “ ‘the  Constitu­
tion  contemplates  that  in  the  end  our  own  judgment  will 
be  brought  to  bear  on  the  question  of  the  acceptability  of 
the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment.’ ”  Id., at 
___  (slip  op.,  at  19)  (quoting  Coker  v.  Georgia,  433  U. S. 
584,  597  (1977)  (plurality  opinion));  see  also  Thompson  v.