Justice Breyer: The death penalty is 'likely unconstitutional'

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer
(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Justice Stephen Breyer took his dissent in Monday's Supreme Court ruling upholding the use of a lethal injection drug one step further, not only questioning the constitutionality of the drug, but the constitutionality of the death penalty itself:

"For it is those changes, taken together with my own 20 years of experience on this court, that lead me to believe the death penalty, in and of itself, now likely constitutes a legally prohibited 'cruel and unusual punishmen[t],'" Breyer wrote in his dissent.

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