Page:Glossip v. Gross.pdf/73

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

23

BREYER, J., dissenting

2d 880, 894 (1972) (collecting sources) (“[C]ruelty of capital punishment lies not only in the execution itself and the pain incident thereto, but also in the dehumanizing effects of the lengthy imprisonment prior to execution during which the judicial and administrative procedures essential to due process of law are carried out” (footnote omitted)); District Attorney for Suffolk Dist. v. Watson, 381 Mass. 648, 673, 411 N. E. 2d 1274, 1287 (1980) (Braucher, J., concurring) (death penalty unconstitutional under State Constitution in part because “[it] will be carried out only after agonizing months and years of uncertainty”); see also Riley v. Attorney General of Jamaica, [1983] 1 A. C. 719, 734–735 (P. C. 1982) (Lord Scarman, joined by Lord Brightman, dissenting) (“execution after inordinate delay” would infringe prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishments” in §10 of the “Bill of Rights of 1689,” the precursor to our Eighth Amendment); Pratt v. Attorney Gen. of Jamaica, [1994] 2 A. C. 1, 4 (P. C. 1993); id., at 32– 33 (collecting cases finding inordinate delays unconstitu­ tional or the equivalent); State v. Makwanyane 1995 (3) SA391 (CC) (S. Afr.); Catholic Commission for Justice & Peace in Zimbabwe v. Attorney-General, [1993] 1 Zim. L. R. 242, 282 (inordinate delays unconstitutional); Soer­ ing v. United Kingdom, 11 Eur. Ct. H. R. (ser. A), p. 439 (1989) (extradition of murder suspect to United States would violate the European Convention on Human Rights in light of risk of delay before execution); United States v. Burns, [2001] 1 S. C. R. 283, 353, ¶123 (similar). 2 The second constitutional difficulty resulting from lengthy delays is that those delays undermine the death penalty’s penological rationale, perhaps irreparably so. The rationale for capital punishment, as for any punish­ ment, classically rests upon society’s need to secure deter­ rence, incapacitation, retribution, or rehabilitation. Capi­