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SCOTUS blocks Texas execution, but Oklahoma completed second execution of 2011

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this AP story, Texas death row defendant "Cleve Foster?s lethal injection was stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court so it can further review [his] appeal. In the court?s brief order [which is available here], Justices Antonin Scalia and Sam Alito indicated they would have allowed the punishment to proceed." Meanwhile, as detailed in this Reuters story, "Oklahoma put to death on Tuesday ... Jeffrey David Matthews ... [who] was convicted of murdering Otis Earl Short, 77, his great uncle, during a robbery of the elderly man's home." As this DPIC webpage details, Oklahoma now has executed in the first few weeks of 2011 only one less person than the state put to death in all of 2009 and in all of 2010.  Meanwhile, the last-minute stay in Texas means that the Lone Star State is now certain to go more than three full months without an execution...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 11, 2011 (boomark / email).