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Page Number: 78.0

28 

GLOSSIP v. GROSS 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

[1994] 2 A. C., at 17 (same in United Kingdom) (collecting 
cases).  And,  for  reasons  I  shall  describe,  infra,  at  29–33, 
we  cannot  return  to  the  quick  executions  in  the  founding 
era. 

3 
The  upshot  is  that  lengthy  delays  both  aggravate  the
cruelty  of  the  death  penalty  and  undermine  its  jurispru­
dential  rationale.  And  this  Court  has  said  that,  if  the 
death  penalty  does  not  fulfill  the  goals  of  deterrence  or
retribution,  “it  is  nothing  more  than  the  purposeless  and
needless  imposition  of  pain  and  suffering  and  hence  an
unconstitutional  punishment.”    Atkins,  536  U. S.,  at  319 
(quoting  Enmund  v.  Florida,  458  U. S.  782,  798  (1982);
internal  quotation  marks  omitted);  see  also  Gregg,  428 
U. S.,  at  183  (joint  opinion  of  Stewart,  Powell,  and  Ste­
vens, JJ.) (“sanction imposed cannot be so totally without 
penological  justification  that  it  results  in  the  gratuitous
infliction of suffering”); Furman, supra, at 312 (White, J.,
concurring) (a “penalty with such negligible returns to the 
State  would  be  patently  excessive  and  cruel  and  unusual 
punishment violative of the Eighth Amendment”); Thomp­
son,  556  U. S.,  at  1115  (statement  of  Stevens,  J.,  respect­
ing denial of certiorari) (similar).

Indeed,  Justice  Lewis  Powell  (who  provided  a  crucial
vote  in  Gregg)  came  to  much  the  same  conclusion,  albeit
after  his  retirement  from  this  Court.    Justice  Powell  had 
come to the Court convinced that the Federal Constitution 
did not outlaw the death penalty but rather left the matter
up  to  individual  States  to  determine.  Furman,  supra,  at 
431–432  (Powell,  J.,  dissenting);  see  also  J.  Jeffries,  Jus­
tice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., p. 409 (2001) (describing Powell, 
during  his  time  on  the  Court,  as  a  “fervent  partisan”  of 
“the constitutionality of capital punishment”). 

Soon  after  Justice  Powell’s  retirement,  Chief  Justice 
Rehnquist appointed him to chair a committee addressing