Friday, October 29, 2021

Supreme Court Lifts Stay Of Execution Despite Inmates' Religious Objections To Sentence Conditions

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday, by a vote of 5-3, in a brief Order (full text) vacated a stay of execution that had been entered by the 10th Circuit in Crow v. Jones (Sup. Ct., Docket No. 21A116). According to the New York Times:

The inmates, John Marion Grant and Julius Jones, had argued that the state’s [Oklahoma's] lethal injection protocol, which uses three chemicals, could subject them to excruciating pain.

They also objected on religious grounds to a requirement imposed by a trial judge that they choose among proposed alternative methods of execution, saying that doing so would amount to suicide.