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Edmund Zagorski, 63, had been set to be executed on Thursday but
a few hours before the Supreme Court's decision Tennessee
Governor Bill Haslam granted a 10-day reprieve to allow the case
to wind itself through the courts and to consider the inmate's
request to be put to death by electrocution.
Kavanaugh's name was not on the Supreme Court's two decisions
that were offered without elaboration, so it was not clear how
the conservative justice voted in what was likely his first
ruling in his new post. Liberal justices Stephen Breyer and
Sonia Sotomayor dissented in both decisions.
In its first decision, the court denied a request to hear a case
brought by Zagorski and other Tennessee death row inmates over
the state's lethal injection drug protocol. The mix includes a
compound used in flawed executions in Oklahoma and Arizona where
witnesses said inmates twisted in pain on death chamber gurneys
as drugs to halt breathing and cause cardiac failure took
effect.
"The longer we stand silent amid growing evidence of inhumanity
in execution methods like Tennessee’s, the longer we extend our
own complicity in state-sponsored brutality," Sotomayor wrote.
Lawyers for Zagorski said he believed that compared to the
state's lethal injection mix, the electric chair would be a less
painful option.
The Supreme Court also lifted a U.S. appeals court decision from
a day earlier to temporarily halt the execution after the
current lawyers for Zagorski argued his initial trial lawyers
failed to adequately defend him at his murder trial and
sentencing.
Zagorski was convicted of murdering John Dale Dotson and Jimmy
Porter in a drug deal and stealing the money they had on them to
purchase a large quantity of marijuana, court documents showed.
Brett Kavanaugh spent a collegial first day on the bench as a
U.S. Supreme Court justice on Tuesday that contrasted sharply
with the venom of his confirmation process, taking an active
role in arguments alongside his eight new colleagues.
[nL2N1WP0EL]
The bitterly divided Senate voted 50-48 on Saturday to confirm
Kavanaugh, with just one Democrat supporting him. Kavanaugh's
confirmation gave the Republican president a political victory
ahead of crucial Nov. 6 congressional elections.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by
Michael Perry)
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