Court Opinion

ID: 9433610
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:40:48.418477+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:43.050450
License: Public Domain

Justice Breyer,
dissenting.
In my view, several of the issues raised here are of sufficient difficulty to warrant less speedy consideration. Breard argues, for example, that the novelty of his Vienna Convention claim is sufficient to create “cause” for his having failed to present that claim to the Virginia state courts. Pet. for Cert. in No. 97-8214, pp. 20-22. He might add that the nature of his claim, were we to aecept it, is such as to create a “watershed rule of criminal procedure,” which might overcome the bar to consideration otherwise posed by Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288, 311 (1989). He additionally says that what the Solicitor General describes as Virginia’s violation of the Convention “prejudiced” him by isolating him at a critical moment from Consular Officials who might have advised him to tiy to avoid the death penalty by pleading guilty. Pet. for Cert. in No. 97-8214, p. 22; see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in Nos. 97-1390 and 97-8214, p. 12 (“[T]he Executive Branch has conceded that the Vienna Convention was violated”). I cannot say, without examining the record more fully, that these arguments are obviously without merit. Nor am I willing to accept without fuller briefing and consideration the positions taken *381by the majority on all of the sometimes difficult issues that the majority addresses.
At the same time, the international aspects of the cases have provided us with the advantage of additional briefing even in the short time available. More time would likely mean additional briefing and argument, perhaps, for example, on the potential relevance of proceedings in an international forum.
Finally, as Justice Stevens points out, Virginia is now pursuing an execution schedule that leaves less time for argument and for Court consideration than the Court’s Rules provide for ordinary cases. Like Justice Stevens, I can find no special reason here to truncate the period of time that the Court’s Rules would otherwise make available.
For these reasons, taken together, I would grant the requested stay of execution and consider the petitions for certiorari in the ordinary course.