Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 61

Cite as:  576 U. S. ____ (2015) 

11 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

which  Connecticut  law  made  the  defendant  eligible  for  a
death sentence.  Id., at 641–643.  Courts imposed a death
sentence  in  12  of  these  205  cases,  of  which  9  were  sus­
tained  on  appeal.    Id.,  at  641.  The  study  then  measured
the  “egregiousness”  of  the  murderer’s  conduct  in  those  9 
cases,  developing  a  system  of  metrics  designed  to  do  so. 
Id., at 643–645.  It then compared the egregiousness of the 
conduct  of  the  9  defendants  sentenced  to  death  with  the 
egregiousness of the conduct of defendants in the remain­
ing 196 cases (those in which the defendant, though found 
guilty  of  a  death-eligible  offense,  was  ultimately  not  sen­
tenced to death).  Application of the studies’ metrics made 
clear  that  only  1  of  those  9  defendants  was  indeed  the
“worst  of  the  worst”  (or  was,  at  least,  within  the  15% 
considered  most  “egregious”).    The  remaining  eight  were 
not.  Their behavior was no worse than the behavior of at 
least  33  and  as  many  as  170  other  defendants  (out  of  a 
total  pool  of  205)  who  had  not  been  sentenced  to  death. 
Id., at 678–679. 

Such  studies  indicate  that  the  factors  that  most  clearly
ought  to  affect  application  of  the  death  penalty—namely, 
comparative  egregiousness  of  the  crime—often  do  not.
Other  studies  show  that  circumstances  that  ought  not  to 
affect  application  of  the  death  penalty,  such  as  race,  gen­
der, or geography, often do. 

Numerous  studies,  for  example,  have  concluded  that 

individuals  accused  of  murdering  white  victims,  as  op­
posed to black or other minority victims, are more likely to
receive the death penalty.  See GAO, Report to the Senate 
and  House  Committees  on  the  Judiciary:  Death  Penalty 
Sentencing  5  (GAO/GGD–90–57,  1990)  (82%  of  the  28
studies conducted between 1972 and 1990 found that race 
of  victim  influences  capital  murder  charge  or  death  sen­
tence,  a  “finding  . . .  remarkably  consistent  across  data
sets,  states,  data  collection  methods,  and  analytic  tech­
niques”);  Shatz  &  Dalton,  Challenging  the  Death  Penalty