An Attempt to Avoid Confusion in Death Penalty Stay Orders

By Tom Goldstein
on Oct 30, 2007 at 3:12 pm

This post by Lyle links to this Order of the Court denying Earl Berry’s petition for certiorari and application for a stay of a decision of the Mississippi Supreme Court. I thought it was worth pausing on this sentence in the Court’s Order: “The judgment of the Mississippi Supreme Court relies upon an adequate and independent state ground that deprives the Court of jurisdiction.”

It is quite unusual for the Court to explain its denial of a stay. The logical explanation is that the Justices, recognizing that they will be receiving a large number of Baze-related stay applications, want to avoid the confusion (for both litigants and lower courts) that might otherwise arise from Orders granting some and denying others without comment.
This seems to me a very beneficial practice.