The U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up a death row inmate’s appeal in the four-decade-old murder of an Orlando car salesman, but Justice Stephen Breyer used the case to raise broader questions about the death penalty.
Breyer, who wrote a dissenting opinion in the case of death row inmate Henry Sireci, has called in the past for reconsidering the constitutionality of the death penalty. But his pointed comments Monday came as Florida’s death penalty has been on hold for nearly a year because of court rulings that found parts of state law unconstitutional.
