Entries tagged with “Stephen Breyer

Facts & Research

United States Supreme Court

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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 all inno­cent.’ But…

Policy Issues

Arbitrariness

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Innocence

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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 names will be…

Facts & Research

United States Supreme Court

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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.” Biden said the same day that…