Supreme Court Turns Down Federal Execution Case

The U.S. Supreme Court today turned down the federal execution protocol case, apparently on a 7-2 vote. The orders list is here. See page 6. See this post from June 18. The order notes, “Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor would grant the application and the petition for a writ of certiorari.”

There is no opinion dissenting from the denial, just a notation. I hedge on the vote with “apparently” because the vote is not given and the circumstances in which justices note their dissent from these orders are rather opaque.

The case is now titled Bourgeois, et al. v. Barr, having changed the lead plaintiff for some reason, but the case number is still 13-1348.

In other action, the Court unsurprisingly turned down the petition of Nebraska child-killer Raymond Mata. See this post. No dissent is noted on this one.

Mata and all of the inmates set for execution in the Bourgeois case murdered children. As the nation is engrossed in debates about criminal justice, let us not forget the most vulnerable among us. We need strong laws and strong law enforcement to make clear to anyone who would even think about committing acts of great violence against a child that they will be caught and they will be justly punished. For crimes of the magnitude in these cases, there is only one just punishment in our law.