Court Opinion

ID: 9434661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:53:37.618766+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:48.540437
License: Public Domain

Justice Thomas,
dissenting.
Petitioner must rely on Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302 (1989), to argue that Texas’ special issues framework unconstitutionally limited the discretion of his sentencing jury. I have long maintained, however, that Penry did “so much violence to so many of this Court’s settled precedents in an area of fundamental constitutional law, [that] it cannot command the force of stare decisis.” Graham v. Collins, 506 U. S. 461, 497 (1993) (concurring opinion). I therefore agree with Justice Scalia that a certificate of appealability can*295not be issued based upon an “insubstantial right... derive[d] from case law in which this Court has long left the Constitution behind and embraced contradiction.” Ante, at 294 (dissenting opinion). I respectfully dissent.