Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 120

24 

GLOSSIP v. GROSS 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

(2010)  (emphasis  added).    Simply  stated,  the  “Eighth
Amendment  categorically  prohibits  the  infliction  of  cruel
and  unusual  punishments.”  Penry  v.  Lynaugh,  492  U. S. 
302, 330 (1989) (emphasis added). 

B 
The  Court  today,  however,  would  convert  this  categori­
cal prohibition into a conditional one.  A method of execu­
tion that is intolerably painful—even to the point of being 
the  chemical  equivalent  of  burning  alive—will,  the  Court 
holds, be unconstitutional if, and only if, there is a “known 
and  available  alternative”  method  of  execution.    Ante,  at 
15.  It  deems  Baze  to  foreclose  any  argument  to  the  con­
trary.  Ante, at 14. 

Baze  held  no  such  thing.    In  the  first  place,  the  Court
cites  only  the  plurality  opinion  in  Baze  as  support  for  its 
known-and-available-alternative  requirement.    See  ibid. 
Even  assuming  that  the  Baze  plurality  set  forth  such  a 
requirement—which  it  did  not—none  of  the  Members  of
the  Court  whose  concurrences  were  necessary  to  sustain
the Baze Court’s judgment articulated a similar view.  See 
553  U. S.,  at  71–77,  87  (Stevens,  J.,  concurring  in  judg­
ment); id., at 94, 99–107 (THOMAS, J., concurring in judg­
ment);  id.,  at  107–108,  113  (BREYER,  J.,  concurring  in 
judgment).    In  general,  “the  holding  of  the  Court  may  be
viewed  as  that  position  taken  by  those  Members  who
concurred  in  the  judgments  on  the  narrowest  grounds.” 
Marks v. United States, 430 U. S. 188, 193 (1977) (internal 
quotation  marks  omitted).    And  as  the  Court  observes, 
ante, at 14, n. 2, the opinion of JUSTICE THOMAS, joined by
JUSTICE SCALIA, took the broadest position with respect to 
the  degree  of  intent  that  state  officials  must  have  in 
order to have violated the Eighth Amendment, concluding
that  only  a  method  of  execution  deliberately  designed 
to inflict pain, and not one simply designed with deliberate 
indifference  to  the  risk  of  severe  pain,  would  be  un­