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Page Number: 56.0

12 

CITY OF GRANTS PASS v. JOHNSON 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

related  to  a  particular  status.    The  Court  candidly  recog-
nized the “vicious evils of the narcotics traffic” and acknowl-
edged the “countless fronts on which those evils may be le-
gitimately attacked.”  Id., at 667–668.  It left untouched the 
“broad power of a State to regulate the narcotic drugs traffic 
within its borders,” including the power to “impose criminal 
sanctions  . . .  against  the  unauthorized  manufacture,  pre-
scription,  sale,  purchase,  or  possession  of  narcotics,”  and
the power to establish “a program of compulsory treatment
for those addicted to narcotics.”  Id., at 664–665. 

This Court has repeatedly cited Robinson for the proposi-
tion that the “Eighth Amendment . . . imposes a substantive
limit on what can be made criminal and punished as such.” 
Rhodes v. Chapman,  452 U. S. 337, 346, n. 12 (1981); see 
also Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 172 (1976) (joint opin-
ion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.) (“The substantive
limits imposed by the Eighth Amendment on what can be 
made criminal and punished were discussed in Robinson”). 
Though  it  casts  aspersions  on  Robinson  and  mistakenly
treats it as an outlier, the majority does not overrule or re-
consider that decision.2  Nor does the majority cast doubt 
on  this  Court’s  firmly  rooted  principle  that  inflicting  “un-
necessary suffering” that is “grossly disproportionate to the 
severity  of  the  crime”  or  that  serves  no  “penological  pur-
pose” violates the Punishments Clause.  Estelle v. Gamble, 
429  U. S.  97,  103,  and  n.  7  (1976).    Instead,  the  majority
sees  this  case  as  requiring  an  application  or  extension  of 
Robinson.  The majority’s understanding of Robinson, how-
ever, is plainly wrong. 

—————— 

2 See ante, at 20 (“[N]o one has asked us to reconsider Robinson.  Nor 
do  we  see  any  need  to  do  so  today”);  but  see  ante,  at  23  (gratuitously 
noting that Robinson “sits uneasily with the Amendment’s terms, origi-
nal meaning, and our precedents”).  The most important takeaway from 
these unnecessary swipes at Robinson is just that.  They are unneces-
sary.  Robinson  remains  binding  precedent,  no  matter  how  incorrectly
the majority applies it to these facts.