Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 34.0

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

1 

SCALIA, J., concurring 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 14–7955 
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RICHARD E. GLOSSIP, ET AL., PETITIONERS v.
 
KEVIN J. GROSS, ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
 

[June 29, 2015] 

JUSTICE  SCALIA,  with  whom  JUSTICE  THOMAS  joins,

concurring. 

I  join  the  opinion  of  the  Court,  and  write  to  respond  to 
JUSTICE  BREYER’s  plea  for  judicial  abolition  of  the  death 
penalty.

Welcome  to  Groundhog  Day.  The  scene  is  familiar: 
Petitioners, sentenced to die for the crimes they committed 
(including, in the case of one petitioner since put to death,
raping and murdering an 11–month-old baby), come before
this  Court  asking  us  to  nullify  their  sentences  as  “cruel 
and unusual” under the Eighth Amendment.  They rely on
this provision because it is the only provision they can rely 
on.  They were charged by a sovereign State with murder.
They were afforded counsel and tried before a jury of their
peers—tried  twice,  once  to  determine  whether  they  were 
guilty  and  once  to  determine  whether  death  was  the  ap-
propriate  sentence.  They  were  duly  convicted  and  sen-
tenced.  They were granted the right to appeal and to seek
postconviction  relief,  first  in  state  and  then  in  federal 
court.  And now, acknowledging that their convictions are
unassailable, they ask us for clemency, as though clemency 
were ours to give.

The  response  is  also  familiar:  A  vocal  minority  of  the
Court, waving over their heads a ream of the most recent
abolitionist  studies  (a  superabundant  genre)  as  though