“The principle inherent in the clause that prohibits pointless infliction of exce…” — William J. Brennan, Jr.

Religious conflict can be the bloodiest and cruelest conflicts that turn people into fanatics.

Death is not only an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality and in its enormity, but is serves no penal purpose more effectively than a less severe punishment.

We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as 20th-century Americans.

Appellant constituted a legitimate class of one, and this provides a basis for Congress's decision to proceed with dispatch with respect to his materials.