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Tonight, the Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to a prisoner who had been denied a Buddhist religious advisor in the room with him. Last month, SCOTUS refused to grant a stay in a similar case involving a Muslim prisoner. Here's what's up with that.
In the February case, the majority ruled that the prisoner hadn't lodged his complaint in a timely enough manner. The four liberal justices dissented. supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf…
Tonight, there was no issue of timeliness, and the majority granted the stay and ordered that the racially discriminatory policy be reversed. Two conservative justices dissented. supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf…
So in the February case, the ruling was on the procedural question of how quickly the complaint should have been filed, and the justices let the prisoner be executed. Tonight it was on the substance, and the justices ordered a delay in the execution.
The four liberal justices—Kagan, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor—voted in both prisoners' favor. Two conservatives—Thomas and Gorsuch—voted against both prisoners.
The remaining three—Roberts, Alito, and Kavanaugh—voted against the prisoner in the procedural case and for the prisoner in the case decided on the merits.
The question of whether it is crueler and more vicious to deny someone spiritual comfort in the hour of their death on the grounds of their religion or their tardiness in filing a complaint is left as an exercise for the reader.
