Posted on 02/01/2006 8:13:20 PM PST by definitelynotaliberal
WASHINGTON - New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito split with the court's conservatives Wednesday night, refusing to let Missouri execute a death-row inmate contesting lethal injection.
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Alito, handling his first case, sided with inmate Michael Taylor, who had won a stay from an appeals court earlier in the evening. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas supported lifting the stay, but Alito joined the remaining five members in turning down Missouri's last-minute request to allow a midnight execution.
Earlier in the day, Alito was sworn in for a second time in a White House ceremony, where he was lauded by President Bush as a man of "steady demeanor, careful judgment and complete integrity."
He was also was given his assignment for handling emergency appeals: Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. As a result, Missouri filed with Alito its request for the high court to void a stay and allow Taylor's execution.
The court's split vote Wednesday night ended a frenzied day of filings. Missouri twice asked the justices to intervene and permit the execution, while Taylor's lawyers filed two more appeals seeking delays.
Reporters and witnesses had gathered at the state prison awaiting word from the high court on whether to go ahead with the execution.
An appeals court will now review Taylor's claim that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, a claim also used by two Florida death-row inmates that won stays from the Supreme Court over the past week. The court has agreed to use one of the cases to clarify how inmates may bring last-minute challenges to the way they will be put to death.
Alito replaced Sandra Day O'Connor, who had often been the swing vote in capital punishment cases. He was expected to side with prosecutors more often than O'Connor, although as an appeals court judge, his record in death penalty cases was mixed.
Scalia and Thomas have consistently sided with states in death penalty cases and have been especially critical of long delays in carrying out executions.
Taylor was convicted of killing 15-year-old Ann Harrison, who was waiting for a school bus when he and an accomplice kidnapped her in 1989. Taylor pleaded guilty and said he was high on crack cocaine at the time.
Taylor's legal team had pursued two challenges — claiming that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment and that his constitutional rights were violated by a system tilted against black defendants.
The court, acting without Alito, rejected Taylor's appeal that argued that Missouri's death penalty system is racist. Taylor is black and his victim was white. He filed the appeal on Tuesday, the day that Alito was confirmed by the Senate.
From what I understand there was a lot of court activity today. Someone wiser will help spell it out for us.
He's growing in office.
That was quick.
Picture of the inmate?
Even if it was not 9-0 and even if he opposed Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas he still did the right thing. Alito has been on the court for less than 24 hours and he got this case of execution stay that was supposed to expire today. He cannot just go ahead and say yep go ahead and execute the guy without reviewing the case. He needs few days to review it in order to make a sound judgment and this tell a lot about his great demeanour and fairness.
I don't think that the writer meant split with conservatives on the court, I think that he meant split with conservative voters.
There are four stories out there and none of them agree on the facts. This one seems to have the most different.
Makes a lot of sense to me.
"He was expected to side with prosecutors more often than O'Connor, although as an appeals court judge, his record in death penalty cases was mixed."
Maybe his Catholicism came into play. The AP seems to be trying to make this non-story a story.
Just trying to make us look bad, then? Ho-hum, just another day at the office.
Thank you all. I guess I should be used to it, but I'm not!
No, you're absolutely right.
Those of us who supported this guy did so because we trusted his judgement.
ditto ;) ... any truly fair person would undoubtedly call for time on this one - and well he did lest the libs make a field day out it!
I missed the joke here, what do you mean?
If he hadn't reviewed the case, then he SHOULD have abstained, not voted the same way as Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Wow, that could be a FR record for turning on one of our own; less than 24 hours.
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