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GLOSSIP v. GROSS THOMAS, J., concurring

man who kidnaped, beat, raped, and murdered a 21-yearold pregnant newlywed, Karol Hurst, also murdering her unborn child, and then, on the same day, murdered a sheriff ’s deputy acting in the line of duty. Hall v. Florida, 572 U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (slip op., at 1). And in Atkins itself, the Court granted relief to a man who carjacked Eric Michael Nesbitt, forced him to withdraw money from a bank, drove him to a secluded area, and then shot him multiple times before leaving him to bleed to death. Atkins v. Commonwealth, 257 Va. 160, 166–167, 510 S. E. 2d 445, 449–450 (1999). The Court has also misinterpreted the Eighth Amendment to grant relief in egregious cases involving rape. In Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U. S. 407 (2008), the Court granted relief to a man who had been sentenced to death for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter. The rape was so violent that it “separated her cervix from the back of her vagina, causing her rectum to protrude into the vaginal structure,” and tore her “entire perineum. . . from the posterior fourchette to the anus.” Id., at 414. The evidence indicated that the petitioner spent at least an hour and half attempting to destroy the evidence of his crime before seeking emergency assistance, even as his stepdaughter bled profusely from her injuries. Id., at 415. And in Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S. 584 (1977) (plurality opinion), the Court granted relief to a petitioner who had escaped from prison, broken into the home of a young married couple and their newborn, forced the wife to bind her husband, gagged her husband with her underwear, raped her (even after being told that she was recovering from a recent childbirth), and then kidnaped her after threatening her husband, Coker v. State, 234 Ga. 555, 556–557, 216 S. E. 2d 782, 786–787 (1975). In each case, the Court crafted an Eighth Amendment right to be free from execution for the crime of rape—whether it be of an adult, Coker, 433 U. S., at 592, or a child, Kennedy, supra,