Justice Breyer: The death penalty is 'likely unconstitutional'

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.

He outlined three "fundamental constitutional defects" with the death penalty, including "serious unreliability," "arbitrariness in application," and "unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty's penological purpose." He concluded that these three reasons were likely among those that places that have banned the death penalty have considered.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

Breyer was one of four justices who dissented from the decision. The court's conservative justices ruled that the three Oklahoma inmates who brought the charges could not actually prove that the drug violated the Constitution's ban against "cruel and unusual punishment."