Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 74

24 

GLOSSIP v. GROSS 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

tal  punishment  by  definition  does  not  rehabilitate. 
It 
does,  of  course,  incapacitate  the  offender.  But  the  major
alternative  to  capital  punishment—namely,  life  in  prison
without possibility of parole—also incapacitates.  See Ring 
v. Arizona, 536 U. S. 584, 615 (2002) (BREYER, J., concur­
ring in judgment).

Thus,  as  the  Court  has  recognized,  the  death  penalty’s
penological rationale in fact rests almost exclusively upon
a  belief  in  its  tendency  to  deter  and  upon  its  ability  to
satisfy  a  community’s  interest  in  retribution.    See,  e.g., 
Gregg, 428  U. S., at 183 (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell,
and Stevens, JJ.).  Many studies have examined the death 
penalty’s deterrent effect; some have found such an effect,
whereas others have found a lack of evidence that it deters 
crime.  Compare ante, at 5 (SCALIA, J., concurring) (collect­
ing  studies  finding  deterrent  effect),  with  e.g.,  Sorensen, 
Wrinkle,  Brewer,  &  Marquart,  Capital  Punishment  and 
Deterrence: Examining the Effect of Executions on Murder
in Texas, 45 Crime & Delinquency 481 (1999) (no evidence 
of  a  deterrent  effect);  Bonner  &  Fessenden,  Absence  of 
Executions: A Special Report, States With No Death Pen­
alty  Share  Lower  Homicide  Rates,  N.  Y.  Times,  Sept.  22,
2000,  p.  A1  (from  1980–2000,  homicide  rate  in  death-
penalty States was 48% to 101% higher than in non-death­
penalty  States);  Radelet  &  Akers,  Deterrence  and  the 
Death Penalty: The Views of the Experts, 87 J. Crim. L. & 
C.  1,  8  (1996)  (over  80%  of  criminologists  believe  existing
research fails to support deterrence justification); Donohue
& Wolfers, Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the 
Death  Penalty  Debate,  58  Stan.  L. Rev.  791,  794  (2005) 
(evaluating  existing  statistical  evidence  and  concluding
that there is “profound uncertainty” about the existence of 
a deterrent effect).

Recently,  the  National  Research  Council  (whose  mem­
bers are drawn from the councils of the National Academy 
of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the