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Alito Votes to Stay Mo. Execution By Gina Holland WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito split with the court's conservatives in a death penalty case on his first full day on the court. Handling his first case, Alito sided with five other justices Wednesday evening in refusing to allow Missouri to execute inmate Michael Taylor. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas supported lifting an execution stay issued by an appeals court, but Alito sided with the majority in turning down Missouri's last-minute request to allow a late night execution. Earlier in the day, Alito was sworn in for a second time in a White House ceremony, where he was lauded by President Bush as a man of "steady demeanor, careful judgment and complete integrity." He was also was given his assignment for handling emergency appeals: Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. As a result, Missouri filed with Alito its request for the high court to void a stay and allow Taylor's execution. Following the usual practice, he asked the full court to deal with the matter. Death row opponents praised Alito's handling of the case. "It's a reasonable, cautionary vote. It doesn't necessarily indicate leanings toward death penalty defendants," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "But at least he's going to be his own person." The court's split vote Wednesday night ended a frenzied day of filings. Missouri twice asked the justices to intervene and permit the execution, while Taylor's lawyers filed two more appeals seeking delays. Meanwhile, police officers and reporters huddled in a windowless, stark room at a prison in Bonne Terre, Mo., waiting for hours before word came that the execution would not be held. "We feel justice is being served," said George Taylor, the father of the death row inmate. Kansas City police Sgt. David Bernard, a friend of the victim's family, said he was glad family members did not make the trip to the prison. "It brings the whole tragic episode back, and they relive it again and again," he said. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will now hear arguments from Taylor, who claims that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. That claim also was used by two Florida death-row inmates who won stays from the Supreme Court over the past week. The high court has agreed to use one of the Florida cases to clarify how inmates may bring last-minute challenges to the way they will be put to death, but not to decide the constitutionality of lethal injection. Alito replaced Sandra Day O'Connor, who had often been the swing vote in capital punishment cases. He was expected to side with prosecutors more often than O'Connor, although as an appeals court judge, his record in death penalty cases was mixed. Scalia and Thomas have consistently sided with states in death penalty cases and have been especially critical of long delays in carrying out executions. Taylor was convicted of killing 15-year-old Ann Harrison, who was waiting for a school bus when he and an accomplice kidnapped her in 1989. Taylor pleaded guilty and said he was high on crack cocaine at the time. Taylor's legal team had pursued two challenges -- claiming that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment and that his constitutional rights were violated by a system tilted against black defendants. The court, acting without Alito, rejected Taylor's appeal that argued that Missouri's death penalty system is racist. Taylor is black and his victim was white. He filed the appeal on Tuesday, the day that Alito was confirmed by the Senate. Copyright © 2006, The Associated Press |
