Cite as: 536 U. S. 584 (2002)
Breyer, J., concurring in judgment
sion on Capital Punishment 7-10 (Apr. 15, 2002) (imposing moratorium on Illinois executions because, post-Furman, 13 people have been exonerated and 12 executed); see generally Bedau & Radelet, Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases, 40 Stan. L. Rev. 21, 27 (1987).
They point to the potentially arbitrary application of the death penalty, adding that the race of the victim and socioeconomic factors seem to matter. See, e. g., U. S. General Accounting Office, Report to Senate and House Committees on the Judiciary: Death Penalty Sentencing 5 (Feb. 1990) (synthesis of 28 studies shows "pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty"); Baldus, Woodworth, Zuckerman, Weiner, & Broffitt, Racial Discrimination and the Death Penalty in the Post-Furman Era: An Empirical and Legal Overview, With Recent Findings from Philadelphia, 83 Cornell L. Rev. 1638, 1661 (1998) (evidence of race-of-victim disparities in 90% of States studied and of race-of-defendant disparities in 55%); McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279, 320-345 (1987) (Brennan, J., dissenting); see also, e. g., D. Baldus, G. Woodworth, G. Young, & A. Christ, The Disposition of Nebraska Capital and Non-Capital Homicide Cases (1973- 1999): A Legal and Empirical Analysis 95-100 (Oct. 10, 2001) (death sentences almost five times more likely when victim is of a high socio-economic status).
They argue that the delays that increasingly accompany sentences of death make those sentences unconstitutional because of "the suffering inherent in a prolonged wait for execution." Knight v. Florida, 528 U. S. 990, 994 (1999) (Breyer, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari) (arguing that the Court should consider the question); see, e. g., Lackey v. Texas, 514 U. S. 1045 (1995) (Stevens, J., respecting denial of certiorari); Bureau of Justice Statistics, Capital Punishment 2000, pp. 12, 14 (rev. 2002) (average delay is 12 years, with 52 people waiting more than 20 years and some more than 25).
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