Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 39.0

6 

GLOSSIP v. GROSS 

SCALIA, J., concurring 

two years or less.  Post, at 18.  But by 2014, he tells us, it 
took an average of 18 years to carry out a death sentence. 
Id.,  at  19.  What  happened  in  the  intervening  years?
Nothing  other  than  the  proliferation  of  labyrinthine  re-
strictions  on  capital  punishment,  promulgated  by  this
Court  under  an  interpretation  of  the  Eighth  Amendment
that  empowered  it  to  divine  “the  evolving  standards  of 
decency  that  mark  the  progress  of  a  maturing  society,” 
Trop  v.  Dulles,  356  U. S.  86,  101  (1958)  (plurality  opin-
ion)—a task for which we are eminently ill suited.  Indeed, 
for  the  past  two  decades,  JUSTICE  BREYER  has  been  the 
Drum  Major  in  this  parade.    His  invocation  of  the  result-
ant delay as grounds for abolishing the death penalty calls 
to mind the man sentenced to death for killing his parents, 
who pleads for mercy on the ground that he is an orphan.
Amplifying  the  surrealism  of  his  argument,  JUSTICE 
BREYER  uses  the  fact  that  many  States  have  abandoned 
capital  punishment—have  abandoned  it  precisely  because 
of  the  costs  those  suspect  decisions  have  imposed—to 
conclude  that  it  is  now  “unusual.”    Post,  at  33–39. 
(A
caution to the reader:  Do not use the creative arithmetic 
that  JUSTICE  BREYER  employs  in  counting  the  number  of 
States that use the death penalty when you prepare your 
next  tax  return;  outside  the  world  of  our  Eighth  Amend-
ment abolitionist-inspired jurisprudence, it will be regarded
as more misrepresentation than math.) 

If we were to travel down the path that JUSTICE BREYER 
sets out for us and once again consider the constitutionality 
of  the  death  penalty,  I  would  ask  that  counsel  also  brief 
whether  our  cases  that  have  abandoned  the  historical 
understanding of the Eighth Amendment, beginning with 
Trop,  should  be  overruled.  That  case  has  caused  more 
mischief  to  our  jurisprudence,  to  our  federal  system,  and
to our society than any other that comes to mind.  JUSTICE 
BREYER’s dissent is the living refutation of Trop’s assump-
tion that this Court has the capacity to recognize “evolving