Recently there have been a fair amount of death row inmates looking to appeal their sentences. After the Supreme Court declined to hear the case of Mr. Henry P. Sireci, Justice Breyer has written a dissenting opinion on the decision, citing his reasoning in that the administration of death penalty sentencing to inmates is often “chosen at random… or still worse on the basis of race.” Liptak writes that Justice Breyer had been a long time opponent of the death penalty and that one fellow Justice, Justice Thomas, was unimpressed with the opinion thinking it lacked validity due to the circumstances. Much like with many Supreme Court decisions there was no explanation of why the case was not accepted although another Justice has admitted to voting alongside Breyer although she did not join in his dissenting opinion.
The case of Mr. Henry P. Sireci was first heard in a constitutional court, or a federal court created by…show more content… Sireci felt his sentencing had been decided based on flawed testimonies and distorted evidence so he took his case to an appellate court, a court that determines if there were and error made during the initial trial, so that they could use their appellate jurisdiction, authority to review lower court decisions, to determine whether or not Sireci was given a fair trial. The case eventually made its way up to the Supreme Court but, unfortunately, did not meet the rule of four, meaning that four of the nine Justices- eight in this case- did not vote to hear the case, and thus the Sireci case was not placed on the docket, list of cases
