U.S. Supreme Court - Stay of Execution for Schwab

November 15, 2007

The U.S. Supreme Court has given Mark Dean Schwab a stay of execution this afternoon. The vigil and memorial service have been canceled. Please see the news article below.

Sheila Meehan, TCADP Chair

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Nov 15, 2007
Schwab stay marks nationwide halt to executions
By Paul Flemming
Florida Capital Bureau TALLAHASSEE — It’s all but official, the United States has a moratorium on executions until June 2008.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to Mark Dean Schwab, halting his scheduled lethal injection.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office said it will not make further court filings today in the wake of the court’s stay for Schwab.

The 38-year-old convicted child rapist and murderer was scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m.

Schwab’s is the fourth stay the U.S. Supreme Court has granted since September, when it took up a Kentucky case, referred to as Baze for one of the death-row inmates who brought the challenge, to consider standards for constitutional challenges to lethal injection. Other state courts and governors have followed suit and halted executions.

Alison Nathan, a professor at the Fordham Law School in New York City and an expert on death penalty litigation before the court, said Schwab’s stay is definitive.

“I would venture to say that it’s absolutely clear we’re not going to see a lethal injection execution going forward until we see a decision in Baze,” Nathan said. “I thought we had a clear signal before, but this is as strong a confirmation as you can get.”

The court is likely to hear oral arguments for the Baze case in early 2008 and probably won’t rule until summer of next year.

Here is the entire order from the U.S. Supreme Court:

“The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is granted pending the timely filing and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the issuance of the mandate of this Court.”

Nathan said that language was standard in similar cases and indicated the court will hold any rulings on the death penalty cases, and requests for stay, until after it decides Baze.

The Baze case does not challenge the constitutionality of the death penalty, nor of lethal injection. Instead, it seeks to set a higher standard for review of methods that three dozen states use for executions – a three-drug cocktail that anesthetizes, paralyzes and finally stops the heart of condemned prisoners.

The Florida Supreme Court earlier this month found the state’s lethal injection procedures – new since a botched execution last December – was not only constitutional, but would withstand any standard of review the U.S. Supreme Court might come up with, including that proposed by Baze’s attorneys.

But Nathan said it’s Supreme Court practice to put on hold cases similar to those they’ve agreed to consider.

“These cases are just raising the same issue. Out of fairness and justice and careful deliberation” the stays are granted, Nathan said. “It’s just not enough for the state court to say, no matter what happens in Baze, we’re going to be fine.”