Are U.S. Supreme Court justices denying constitutional appeals in death penalty cases because of the threat of impeachment from Congress?

Yesterday, several appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court from the condemned to death Oklahoma prisoner Richard Glossip were denied.

Richard Glossip was not executed only because the Oklahoma Governor issued a last-minute stay of execution for 37 days, exclusively because the Oklahoma Department of Corrections did not have the "right" drug for execution.

There was, reportedly, a lone dissenter as to denials of appeals by the U.S. Supreme Court - justice Stephen Breyer.

That is, Justice Stephen Breyer who recently published a book "The Courts and the World" where he discusses - at least somewhat - the death penalty and why the U.S. Supreme Court is not abolishing it.

A lot is said in this country about the necessity of judicial independence.

The completely insane concept of absolute judicial immunity for MALICIOUS and CORRUPT acts on the bench was introduced and enforced by all courts in this country allegedly because of the need to protect independence of judicial decisions.

From how the U.S. Supreme Court rules, it often seems that the U.S. Supreme Court IS the ultimate government in the United States and fears for nothing - there is no discipline of such judges, no punishment for failure to recuse, and there is no history that a U.S. Supreme Court justice was ever impeached.

Yet, in his book "The Courts and the World", the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer states at the Location 5161 (I have a Kindle version) the following:

        "Seventy-four members of Congress sponsored
        legislation in 2004 stating 'that judicial determinations
        regarding the meaning of the laws of the United
        States should not be based in whole or in part
        on judgments, laws, or pronouncements of
        foreign institutions unless such foreign judgments,
        laws, or pronouncements ... inform an understanding
        of the original meaning of the laws of the United
        States",

and that the "sponsoring member of the House said that were the bill to become law, judges who deliberately violated it might 'subject themselves to the ultimate remedy which would be impeachment".

The statement that is quoted is the Statement of Rep. Nadler quoting Rep. Feeney on the "Appropriate Role of Foreign Judgments in the Interpretation of American Law: Hearing on H. Res. 568 before the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 108th Cong. (2004),  footnote 12 in Judge Stephen Breyer's book.

It is very obvious that prohibiting judges to rely upon foreign law in making their judicial decisions is undermining their independence, SEVERELY so when a threat of impeachment is clearly on the table for the contents of judicial decisions.

It is also very obvious that such law, if passed by the U.S. Congress, may be very well in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution that all legislators are sworn to uphold, because the Supremacy Clause includes International Treaties where the United States participates, and many foreign decisions may be based on the spirit, if not the letter of such Treaties.

Yet, the threat of impeachment for relying on what the world thinks of the shifts in the law - including the shifts in what is deemed by the international legal community basic human rights - is there.

Judges of the U.S. Supreme Court are appointed for life, it is a well-paid and prestigious job, and being booted off the U.S. Supreme Court would be the ultimate disgrace for any respectable judge.

A lot of arguments for abolition of the death penalty in the United States are based specifically on the concept that death penalty has been long abolished in other civilized countries, or, rather, in civilized countries, period, because the United States cannot call itself a civilized country while continuing to act as a serial killer in order to show that killing is wrong.

So, when you are seeing that the U.S. Supreme Court - once again - denied a death penalty appeal, that can be because judicial independence of that court is undermined by the death penalty lobby in the U.S. legislature, the legislature that does not care to introduce bills to abolish absolute judicial immunity for malicious and corrupt acts on the bench, but would impeach a judge for bringing the state of human rights in the United States up to par with what it is in the international legal community.

And - when judges still dissent and vote to grant such an appeal, like Stephen Breyer did yesterday for Richard Glossip, a lonely dissent, I must stay, that means some courage, even if Stephen Breyer does not consistently dissent on all denials of death penalty appeals.