In California Case, Justice Breyer Assails Capital Punishment

This article was about Justice Stephen G. Breyer was unhappy with his colleagues because they decided to not challenge California’s death penalty system. Justice Stephen G. Breyer has found briefs related to California’s death penalty that he calls “unreliable, arbitrary and plagued by unconscionably long days.” Justice gives a criminal case example of the dysfunctional system that is in place at the moment by talking about a man by the name of Richard D. Boyer, who has cited the stress of his long wait on death row after being sentenced for murder in 1984. Justice Breyer has emerged as the court’s leading critic of the current regulations of the death penalty that is in place.

Throughout the article Justice Breyer stressed that the long wait in between death sentences might make people execute themselves which violates the 8^th amendment. Justice Breyer strongly suggested that the precedent that California has at the moment is not the best possible way to handle these issues. Richard D. Boyer had a case back in the 90’s that was rejected, but because of Justice Breyer’s recent complaints and good points the legislative court did not reject the reason for having another case.  I think this article is related to our recent unit because all the details throughout the article are about trying to get a court hearing for the death penalty and our subunit was about all the different types of courts. I think this article is most related to legislative courts. I also think that this is an interesting topic and obviously there are different opinions on what should happen which makes a good debate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/us/politics/supreme-court-stephen-breyer-capital-punishment-california.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FU.S.%20Supreme%20Court&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection&_r=0