It's Good To Be The King

I have a lot of sympathy for Justice Stevens' view of the death penalty, but in the recent Baze v. Rees case on the constitutionality of lethal injection, we get this from his concurrence:

I have relied on my own experience in reaching the conclusion that the imposition of the death penalty represents "the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes[...]"

Interesting, his personal experience. How about, oh, I don't know, precedent? Or, faillng that, maybe a little evidence.