Reed v. Louisiana

Cite as: 580 U. S. ____ (2017) 1
BREYER, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
MARCUS DANTE REED v. LOUISIANA
ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME
COURT OF LOUISIANA
No. 16–656 Decided February 27, 2017
The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
JUSTICE BREYER, dissenting from the denial of certiorari.
Marcus Dante Reed was sentenced to death in Caddo
Parish, Louisiana, a county that in recent history has
apparently sentenced more people to death per capita than
any other county in the United States. See Aviv, Revenge
Killing: Race and the Death Penalty in a Louisiana Par-
ish, The New Yorker, July 6 & 13, 2015, p. 34. The arbi-
trary role that geography plays in the imposition of the
death penalty, along with the other serious problems I
have previously described, has led me to conclude that the
Court should consider the basic question of the death
penalty’s constitutionality. See Glossip v. Gross, 576 U. S.
___ (2015) (BREYER, J., dissenting). For this reason, I
would grant Reed’s petition for a writ of certiorari.