http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/us/politics/supreme-court-stephen-breyer-capital-punishment-california
Justice Breyer Assails Capital Punishment
Summary: High on the SCOTUS, political agenda is the debate over capital punishment, commonly known as the death penalty. Justice Breyer has urged his fellow justices to rethink their decision to turn down a case that would have challenged California's death penalty. Richard Boyer was sentenced to death row after murdering two people. From jail he wrote about the stress of a long wait on death row. Justice Breyer has used this to his advantage. Stating that California's death penalty system is a dysfunctional system and is unreliable. Breyer stated that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendments which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. He believes that the time between a death sentence and when the execution occurs is much too long and can be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Analysis: The Supreme Court has the jurisdiction to vote on whether the death penalty is unconstitutional or not. Justice Breyer stated "Our Constitution was written at a time when delay between sentencing and execution was measured in days and weeks, not decades". This is an example of judicial restraint because Breyer believes that the Supreme Court needs to consider that the delay is cruel and unusual punishment as described in The Eighth Amendment, meaning that the court should decide laws on the strict basis of the of the Constitution. This is loose constitutionalism however because Breyer believes the federal government should make this delay illegal, which gives more power to the government.
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