Page:Glossip v. Gross.pdf/34

 Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015)

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SCALIA, J., concurring

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________

No. 14–7955 _________________

RICHARD E. GLOSSIP, ET AL., PETITIONERS v.

KEVIN J. GROSS, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

[June 29, 2015]

JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, concurring. I join the opinion of the Court, and write to respond to JUSTICE BREYER’s plea for judicial abolition of the death penalty. Welcome to Groundhog Day. The scene is familiar: Petitioners, sentenced to die for the crimes they committed (including, in the case of one petitioner since put to death, raping and murdering an 11–month-old baby), come before this Court asking us to nullify their sentences as “cruel and unusual” under the Eighth Amendment. They rely on this provision because it is the only provision they can rely on. They were charged by a sovereign State with murder. They were afforded counsel and tried before a jury of their peers—tried twice, once to determine whether they were guilty and once to determine whether death was the appropriate sentence. They were duly convicted and sentenced. They were granted the right to appeal and to seek postconviction relief, first in state and then in federal court. And now, acknowledging that their convictions are unassailable, they ask us for clemency, as though clemency were ours to give. The response is also familiar: A vocal minority of the Court, waving over their heads a ream of the most recent abolitionist studies (a superabundant genre) as though