1980—Days after Ronald Reagan has defeated Jimmy Carter in his bid for re-election and after Republicans have won control of the incoming Senate, President Carter nominates Stephen G. Breyer, then serving as chief counsel to Teddy Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to a newly created seat on the First Circuit. Less than four weeks later, the Senate confirms Breyer’s nomination.
2018—In a statement regarding the denial of certiorari in a death-penalty case (Reynolds v. Florida), Justice Breyer expresses his concern that “lengthy delays [in carrying out death sentences] deepen the cruelty of the death penalty and undermine its penological rationale,” and he proposes that the Court reconsider the constitutionality of the death penalty. Justice Thomas responds:
It makes a mockery of our system of justice for a convicted murderer, who, through his own interminable efforts of delay has secured the almost-indefinite postponement of his sentence, to then claim that the almost-indefinite postponement renders his sentence unconstitutional…. The labyrinthine restrictions on capital punishment promulgated by this Court have caused the delays that Justice Breyer now bemoans. As “the Drum Major in this parade” of new precedents [quoting Justice Scalia in Glossip v. Gross], Justice Breyer is not well positioned to complain about their inevitable consequences.