Justices Stay Execution, Signaling Moratorium

The Supreme Court delivered an eleventh-hour stay for a prisoner slated to die by lethal injection last night, giving what the New York Times calls a "nearly indisputable indication" that a majority of justices are willing to block all executions until they rule on a death penalty case next spring. Earl Berry had eaten his last meal in a Mississippi jail, and the verdict was delivered 19 minutes before the scheduled execution.

The decision imposes a de facto moratorium on all executions until 2008, the Times concludes, as lower courts will now have to grant stays while the Supreme Court considers the overriding case. At issue is not the constitutionality of the death penalty, but a procedural question of how to evaluate arguments that a lethal injection produces suffering amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. (More death penalty stories.)