`
`BREYER, J., dissenting
`
`SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
`
`
` RICHARD DELMER BOYER v. RONALD DAVIS,
`
`
` WARDEN
`
`ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED
`
`
`STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
`
`
` No. 15–8119. Decided May 2, 2016
`
`The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
`JUSTICE BREYER, dissenting from denial of certiorari.
`Richard Boyer was initially sentenced to death 32 years
`ago. He now asks us to consider whether the Eighth
`Amendment allows a State to keep a prisoner incarcerated
`under threat of execution for so long. Boyer’s first trial
`ended with a mistrial after his jury was unable to reach a
`verdict. Brief in Opposition 1. Boyer’s second trial, in
`1984, yielded a conviction and capital sentence that the
`California Supreme Court reversed on the ground that
`police officers had obtained evidence by violating his con-
`
`
`stitutional rights. Ibid.; see Boyer v. Chappell, 793 F. 3d
`
`1092, 1094, n. 1 (CA9 2015). Boyer’s third trial took place
`in 1992 and took 14 years to wend its way through Cali-
`fornia’s appellate process. Id., at 1097. In all, 22 years
`elapsed between his first trial and our denial of his peti-
`tion for certiorari on direct appeal. See Boyer v. Califor-
`nia, 549 U. S. 1021 (2006). Since then, 10 more years
`have elapsed.
`
`These delays are the result of a system that the Califor-
`
`nia Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice
`(Commission), an arm of the State of California, see Cal.
`S. Res. 44 (2004), has labeled “dysfunctional.” Report and
`Recommendations on the Administration of the Death
`Penalty in California 6 (2008). Eight years ago, the Com-
`mission wrote that more than 10 percent of the capital
`sentences issued in California since 1978 had been re-
`
`1
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`2
`
`
`BOYER v. DAVIS
`
`BREYER, J., dissenting
`
`
` versed. See id., at 20. It noted that many prisoners had
`died of natural causes before their sentences were carried
`out, and more California death row inmates had commit-
`ted suicide than had been executed by the State. Ibid.
`
`Indeed, only a small, apparently random set of death row
`inmates had been executed. See ibid. A vast and growing
`majority remained incarcerated, like Boyer, on death row
`under a threat of execution for ever longer periods of time.
`See id., at 19–20. The Commission added that California’s
`
`death penalty system was expensive, with its system for
`capital cases costing more than 10 times what the Com-
`mission estimated the cost would be for a system that
`substituted the death penalty with life imprisonment
`
`without the possibility of parole. Id., at 83–84.
`
`Put simply, California’s costly “administration of the
`death penalty” likely embodies “three fundamental de-
`fects” about which I have previously written: “(1) serious
`unreliability,
`(2) arbitrariness
`in application, and
`(3) unconscionably long delays that undermine the death
` penalty’s penological purpose.” Glossip v. Gross, 576 U. S.
`
`
` ___, ___ (2015) (BREYER, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 2); see
`
`Lackey v. Texas, 514 U. S. 1045 (1995) (memorandum of
` Stevens, J., respecting denial of certiorari); see also Valle
`
`
`
`v. Florida, 564 U. S. 1067 (2011) (BREYER, J., dissenting
`
`from denial of stay); Knight v. Florida, 528 U. S. 990, 993
`(1999) (BREYER, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari).
`
`
`For these reasons, I respectfully dissent from the denial
`
`of certiorari.
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