Entries tagged with “Stephen Breyer

Upcoming Executions

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May 08, 2025

New Analysis: Capital Cases Overturned At Least Four Times Illustrate How Pervasive Prosecutorial Misconduct Contributes to High Cost of Death Penalty

The sin­gle most com­mon out­come for a death sen­tence in the mod­ern era is for it to be reversed on appeal due to a con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tion. Most peo­ple whose sen­tences are reversed get resen­tenced to life in prison or less, but some pros­e­cu­tors per­sist in seek­ing new death sen­tences even after mul­ti­ple rever­sals. A Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of the 14 peo­ple sen­tenced to death four or more times for the same crime finds that prosecutorial…

Research

Jun 08, 2023

Former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer Expresses Continued Frustration with the Fair Administration of the Death Penalty

In a recent inter­view with The Marshall Project, for­mer United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer dis­cussed his twen­­ty-eight years of expe­ri­ence on the Court and the evo­lu­tion of his view on the death penal­ty. He explained that he did not go to the Supreme Court intend­ing to over­turn the death penal­ty, but “[i]t’s so unfair­ly admin­is­tered. There’s nei­ther rhyme nor rea­son. The whole point of this crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is fair­ness.… I’m not say­ing,​‘You’re…

Issues

Upcoming Executions

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Time on Death Row

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Jul 19, 2022

Commentary: Richard Glossip’s Case Exemplifies the Systemic Flaws that Justice Stephen Breyer Warned About

As Richard Glossip faces an exe­cu­tion date for the fourth time, his case is a per­fect exam­ple of the prob­lems in the death-penal­­ty sys­tem that then-Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (pic­tured) iden­ti­fied in his 2015 land­mark dis­sent in Glossip v. Gross. In an analy­sis pub­lished by Slate, Jeremy Stahl writes,​“Whether or not Richard Glossip is ulti­mate­ly exe­cut­ed for a crime he like­ly did not com­mit, his and Breyer’s…

Research

Jan 31, 2022

Justice Stephen Breyer, Pragmatic Jurist Who Doubted Constitutionality of Capital Punishment, to Retire from Supreme Court

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (pic­tured), whose grow­ing doubts about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment led him to ques­tion its con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty, is retir­ing after 28 years on the Court. The 83-year-old jus­tice for­mal­ly announced his retire­ment in a January 27, 2022 let­ter to President Joe Biden, say­ing that he will step down​“when the Court ris­es for the sum­mer recess this year … assum­ing that by then my suc­ces­sor has been nom­i­nat­ed and confirmed.”…