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Page Number: 42.0

2 

GLOSSIP v. GROSS 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

arguments  on  which  JUSTICE  BREYER  relies,  as  my  col-
leagues and I have elsewhere refuted them.1  But JUSTICE 
BREYER’s  assertion,  post,  at  10,  that  the  death  penalty  in
this country has fallen short of the aspiration that capital 
punishment  be  reserved  for  the  “worst  of  the  worst”  —a 
notion itself based on an implicit proportionality principle 
that has long been discredited, see Harmelin v. Michigan, 

—————— 

1 Generally:  Baze  v.  Rees,  553  U. S.  35,  94–97  (2008)  (THOMAS,  J., 
concurring  in  judgment)  (explaining  that  the  Cruel  and  Unusual 
Punishments  Clause  does  not  prohibit  the  death  penalty,  but  only 
torturous  punishments);  Graham  v.  Collins,  506  U. S.  461,  488  (1993) 
(THOMAS, J., concurring); Gardner v. Florida, 430 U. S. 349, 371 (1977)
(Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (“The prohibition of the Eighth Amendment 
relates  to  the  character  of  the  punishment,  and  not  to  the  process  by
which  it  is  imposed”).  On  reliability:  Kansas  v.  Marsh,  548  U. S.  163, 
181  (2006)  (noting  that  the  death  penalty  remains  constitutional 
despite  imperfections  in  the  criminal  justice  system);  McGautha  v. 
California,  402  U. S.  183,  221  (1971)  (“[T]he  Federal  Constitution,
which  marks  the  limits  of  our  authority  in  these  cases,  does  not  guar-
antee  trial  procedures  that  are  the  best  of  all  worlds,  or  that  accord
with  the  most  enlightened  ideas  of  students  of  the  infant  science  of
criminology,  or  even  those  that  measure  up  to  the  individual  predilec-
tions  of  members  of  this  Court”).    On  arbitrariness:  Ring  v.  Arizona, 
536 U. S. 584, 610 (2002) (SCALIA, J., concurring) (explaining that what
compelled States to specify “ ‘aggravating factors’ ” designed to limit the 
death  penalty  to  the  worst  of  the  worst  was  this  Court’s  baseless 
jurisprudence  concerning  juror  discretion);  McCleskey  v.  Kemp,  481 
U. S.  279,  308–312  (1987)  (noting  that  various  procedures,  including
the  right  to  a  jury  trial,  constitute  a  defendant’s  protection  against
arbitrariness  in  the  application  of  the  death  penalty).  On  excessive 
delays: Knight v. Florida, 528 U. S. 990 (1999) (THOMAS, J., concurring
in denial of certiorari) (“I am unaware of any support in the American
constitutional tradition or in this Court’s precedent for the proposition
that  a  defendant  can  avail  himself  of  the  panoply  of  appellate  and
collateral  procedures  and  then  complain  when  his  execution  is  de-
layed”);  see  also  Johnson  v.  Bredesen,  558  U. S.  1067,  1070  (2009) 
(THOMAS, J.,  concurring  in  denial  of  certiorari).    And  on  the  decline  in 
use  of  the  death  penalty: Atkins  v. Virginia,  536  U. S.  304,  345  (2002) 
(SCALIA, J., dissenting); Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 308– 
310 (1976) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).