Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 38

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

5 

SCALIA, J., concurring 

judiciary’s  pay  grade.    Perhaps  JUSTICE  BREYER  is  more 
forgiving—or  more  enlightened—than  those  who,  like
Kant,  believe  that  death  is  the  only  just  punishment  for 
taking  a  life.  I  would  not  presume  to  tell  parents  whose 
life  has  been  forever  altered  by  the  brutal  murder  of  a
child that life imprisonment is punishment enough. 

And finally, JUSTICE BREYER speculates that it does not
“seem  likely”  that  the  death  penalty  has  a  “significant” 
deterrent  effect.  Post,  at  25.    It  seems  very  likely  to  me,
and  there  are  statistical  studies  that  say  so.  See,  e.g., 
Zimmerman,  State  Executions,  Deterrence,  and  the  Inci-
dence of Murder, 7 J. Applied Econ. 163, 166 (2004) (“[I]t 
is estimated that each state execution deters approximately 
fourteen  murders  per  year  on  average”);  Dezhbakhsh, 
Rubin,  &  Shepherd,  Does  Capital  Punishment  Have  a 
Deterrent  Effect?  New  Evidence  from  Postmoratorium 
Panel  Data,  5  Am.  L.  &  Econ.  Rev.  344  (2003)  (“[E]ach
execution results, on average, in eighteen fewer murders” 
per  year);  Sunstein  &  Vermeule,  Is  Capital  Punishment 
Morally  Required?  Acts,  Omissions,  and  Life-Life 
Tradeoffs, 58 Stan. L. Rev. 703, 713 (2005) (“All in all, the
recent  evidence  of  a  deterrent  effect  from  capital  punish-
ment seems impressive, especially in light of its ‘apparent 
power  and  unanimity’ ”).  But  we  federal  judges  live  in  a 
world  apart  from  the  vast  majority  of  Americans.    After 
work, we retire to homes in placid suburbia or to high-rise 
co-ops  with  guards  at  the  door.  We  are  not  confronted 
with  the  threat  of  violence  that  is  ever  present  in  many 
Americans’  everyday  lives.  The  suggestion  that  the  in-
cremental deterrent effect of  capital punishment does not 
seem “significant” reflects, it seems to me, a let-them-eat-
cake  obliviousness  to  the  needs  of  others.    Let  the  People
decide how much incremental deterrence is appropriate.

Of  course,  this  delay  is  a  problem  of  the  Court’s  own
making.  As JUSTICE BREYER  concedes, for more than 160 
years, capital sentences were carried out in an average of