Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 69.0

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

19 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

ishment, 2013—Statistical Tables 14 (Table 10) (rev. Dec.
2014)  (hereinafter  BJS  2013  Stats).  By  last  year  the
average had risen to about 18 years.  DPIC, Execution List 
2014,  supra.  Nearly  half  of  the  3,000  inmates  now  on
death  row  have  been  there  for  more  than  15  years.    And, 
at  present  execution  rates,  it  would  take  more  than  75
years  to  carry  out  those  3,000  death  sentences;  thus,  the 
average  person  on  death  row  would  spend  an  additional 
37.5 years there before being executed.  BJS 2013 Stats, at 
14, 18 (Tables 11 and 15). 

I cannot find any reasons to believe the trend will soon 

be reversed. 

B 
These  lengthy  delays  create  two  special  constitutional
difficulties.  See Johnson v. Bredesen, 558 U. S. 1067, 1069 
(2009)  (Stevens,  J.,  statement  respecting  denial  of  certio­
rari).  First,  a  lengthy  delay  in  and  of  itself  is  especially 
cruel because it “subjects death row inmates to decades of
especially  severe,  dehumanizing  conditions  of  confine­
ment.”  Ibid.;  Gomez  v.  Fierro,  519  U. S.  918  (1996)  (Ste­
vens,  J.,  dissenting)  (excessive  delays  from  sentencing  to
execution  can  themselves  “constitute  cruel  and  unusual 
punishment  prohibited  by  the  Eighth  Amendment”);  see
also Lackey v. Texas, 514 U. S. 1045 (1995) (memorandum 
of  Stevens,  J.,  respecting  denial  of  certiorari);  Knight  v. 
Florida, 528 U. S. 990, 993 (1999) (BREYER, J., dissenting 
from  denial  of  certiorari).   Second,  lengthy  delay  under­
mines the death penalty’s penological rationale.  Johnson, 
supra,  at  1069;  Thompson  v.  McNeil,  556  U. S.  1114, 
1115 (2009) (statement of Stevens, J., respecting denial of 
certiorari). 

Turning  to  the  first  constitutional  difficulty,  nearly  all 
death  penalty  States  keep  death  row  inmates  in  isolation 

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