The Supreme Court stopped the execution of a Virginia Death Row inmate Wednesday, a move that legal experts said might signal a nationwide halt on lethal injections until the justices decide next year whether the procedure amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
The court granted the stay of execution just four hours before Christopher Scott Emmett was to be put to death. It is the second time the justices have stopped an execution since agreeing to decide whether lethal injections carry the potential for pain that would violate constitutional standards.
“I think this is a de facto moratorium,” said Douglas Berman, a sentencing expert at Ohio State University’s law school. Because almost all executions are carried out by lethal injection, he said a halt “would mean the most profound hiatus in the operation of the death penalty in at least two decades.”
The justices review applications for stays on a case-by-case basis and gave no indication what their decision means for other Death Row inmates. They gave no reason for halting Emmett’s execution, saying only that the stay would last until a federal appeals court in Richmond rules on the case “or further order of this court.”
Emmett’s attorneys have brought numerous appeals, and the Supreme Court turned down his latest Oct. 1. Emmett, 36, beat a co-worker to death and stole his money to buy crack.
Democratic Gov. Timothy Kaine, who previously had delayed Emmett’s execution so the justices could consider his latest appeal, said in a statement that he “had no reason to question the prosecutor’s decision to seek the death penalty or the jury’s decision that death was an appropriate punishment.”
Executions by lethal injection have been delayed in at least six states since the court announced Sept. 25 that it was taking up the issue.