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GLOSSIP v. GROSS THOMAS, J., concurring

States, and by the Federal Government. We owe victims more than this sort of pseudoscientific assessment of their lives. It is bad enough to tell a mother that her child’s murder is not “worthy” of society’s ultimate expression of moral condemnation. But to do so based on cardboard stereotypes or cold mathematical calculations is beyond my comprehension. In my decades on the Court, I have not seen a capital crime that could not be considered sufficiently “blameworthy” to merit a death sentence (even when genuine constitutional errors justified a vacatur of that sentence).3 A small sample of the applications for a stay of execution that have come before the Court this Term alone proves my point. Mark Christeson was due to be executed in October 2014 for his role in the murder of Susan Brouk and her young children, Adrian and Kyle. After raping —————— 3 For his part, JUSTICE BREYER explains that his experience on the Court has shown him “discrepancies for which [he] can find no rational explanations.” Post, at 16. Why, he asks, did one man receive death for a single-victim murder, while another received life for murdering a young mother and nearly killing her infant? Ibid. The outcomes in those two cases may not be morally compelled, but there was certainly a rational explanation for them: The first man, who had previously confessed to another murder, killed a disabled man who had offered him a place to stay for the night. State v. Badgett, 361 N. C. 234, 239– 240, 644 S. E. 2d 206, 209–210 (2007). The killer stabbed his victim’s throat and prevented him from seeking medical attention until he bled to death. Ibid. The second man expressed remorse for his crimes and claimed to suffer from mental disorders. See Charbonneau, Andre Edwards Sentenced to Life in Prison for 2001 Murder, WRAL, Mar. 26, 2004, online at http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/109648 (all Internet materials as visited June 25, 2015, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file); Charbonneau, Jury Finds Andre Edwards Guilty of First-Degree Murder, WRAL, Mar. 23, 2004, online at http://www.wral.com/news/local/ story/109563. The other “discrepancies” similarly have “rational” explanations, even if reasonable juries could have reached different results.