In an inter­view at Duke Law School, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reflect­ed on the past term at the U.S. Supreme Court. She dis­cussed sev­er­al land­mark cas­es from the past year, includ­ing Glossip v. Gross, in which she joined Justice Stephen Breyer in a dis­sent that ques­tioned the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty. Ginsburg said she had wait­ed to take such a stance on the death penal­ty because past jus­tices, ​“took them­selves out of the run­ning,” when they did so, leav­ing, ​“no room for them to be per­sua­sive with the oth­er jus­tices.” She reit­er­at­ed many of the key points from the dis­sent, say­ing, ​“I think that [Breyer] point­ed to evi­dence that has grown in quan­ti­ty and in qual­i­ty. He start­ed out by point­ing out that there were a hun­dred peo­ple who had been total­ly exon­er­at­ed of the cap­i­tal crime with which they were charged … so one thing is the mis­takes that are pos­si­ble in this sys­tem. The oth­er is the qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Another is … yes there was racial dis­par­i­ty but even more geo­graph­i­cal dis­par­i­ty. Most states in the union where the death penal­ty is the­o­ret­i­cal­ly on the books don’t have exe­cu­tions.” She also not­ed the grow­ing iso­la­tion of the death penal­ty. “[L]ast year, I think 43 of the states of the United States had no exe­cu­tions, only sev­en did, and the exe­cu­tions that took place tend­ed to be con­cen­trat­ed in cer­tain coun­ties in cer­tain states. So the idea that luck of the draw, if you hap­pened to com­mit a crime in one coun­ty in Louisiana, the chances that you would get the death penal­ty are very high. On the oth­er hand, if you com­mit the same deed in Minnesota, the chances that you would get the death penal­ty are almost nil. So that was anoth­er one of the con­sid­er­a­tions that had become clear as the years went on.”

(S. Lachman and A. Alman, ​“Ruth Bader Ginsburg Reflects On A Polarizing Term One Month Out,” The Huffington Post, July 29, 2015.) See U.S. Supreme Court.

Citation Guide