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The Death Penalty

On November 6, 2017, the US Supreme Court decided against an Alabama man's argument that his mental state, after several debilitating strokes, should preclude his execution. The ruling was based exclusively on the standard of review under the applicable statute.

The most interesting part of the decision, in my view, came at the end of J. Breyer's concurring opinion, in which he said that rather than consider death penalty issues around age or infirmity, the wiser thing to do would be to "reconsider the root cause of the problem - the constitutionality of the death penalty itself."

The opinion can be read at: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-193_6j37.pdf


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