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GLOSSIP v. GROSS SCALIA, J., concurring

they have discovered the lost folios of Shakespeare, insist that now, at long last, the death penalty must be abolished for good. Mind you, not once in the history of the American Republic has this Court ever suggested the death penalty is categorically impermissible. The reason is obvious: It is impossible to hold unconstitutional that which the Constitution explicitly contemplates. The Fifth Amendment provides that “[n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital. . . crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury,” and that no person shall be “deprived of life. . . without due process of law.” Nevertheless, today JUSTICE BREYER takes on the role of the abolitionists in this long-running drama, arguing that the text of the Constitution and two centuries of history must yield to his “20 years of experience on this Court,” and inviting full briefing on the continued permissibility of capital punishment, post, at 2 (dissenting opinion). Historically, the Eighth Amendment was understood to bar only those punishments that added “ ‘terror, pain, or disgrace’ ” to an otherwise permissible capital sentence. Baze v. Rees, 553 U. S. 35, 96 (2008) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment). Rather than bother with this troubling detail, JUSTICE BREYER elects to contort the constitutional text. Redefining “cruel” to mean “unreliable,” “arbitrary,” or causing “excessive delays,” and “unusual” to include a “decline in use,” he proceeds to offer up a white paper devoid of any meaningful legal argument. Even accepting JUSTICE BREYER’s rewriting of the Eighth Amendment, his argument is full of internal contradictions and (it must be said) gobbledy-gook. He says that the death penalty is cruel because it is unreliable; but it is convictions, not punishments, that are unreliable. Moreover, the “pressure on police, prosecutors, and jurors to secure a conviction,” which he claims increases the risk of wrongful convictions in capital cases, flows from the nature of the crime, not the punishment that follows its