Supreme Court grants execution stay in Missippippi

In addition to all sorts of good death penalty coverage, Capital Defense Weekly has the interesting news that the Supreme Court granted a last-minute stay of execution to a Missisippi defendant on Tuesday.  More (sketchy) details about the case and the stay can be found in this AP story, which starts this way:

The U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution of Bobby Glen Wilcher on Tuesday just minutes before the condemned inmate was scheduled to die by lethal injection.Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said Wilcher, who was scheduled to die at 6 p.m. at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, had come closer to death than any inmate under his care before being issued a stay.

The commissioner said Wilcher would be given counseling because he was upset and crying because “he really wanted to die this afternoon.””I’ve never seen an individual so upset that he didn’t get executed,” Epps said.

Among the notable features of the stay was that it was granted by a vote of 6-3, with Justices Kennedy and Thomas supporting the stay, and Justices Scalia, Roberts and Alito in dissent.

UPDATE:  SCOTUSblog has details on this intriguing case here.