BREAKING: #SCOTUS will not stop Missouri's scheduled execution of Johnny Johnson, who is quite possibly constitutionally incompetent to be executed. The decision is over the objection of Sotomayor, joined by Kagan and Jackson.
Background at Law Dork: https://www.lawdork.com/p/missouri-johnny-johnson-competency
@chrisgeidner Just awful. I can't believe 2 more Justices wouldn't even give him a certificate of appealability so he could have a proper merits hearing.
It sounds like the certificate is issued by judges, not justices, and that's key to this process.
With so many judges all reviewing the case at multiple levels of review, #SCOTUS avoidance of questioning state law operation without clear and convincing error comes to the fore.
@volkris @chrisgeidner The bar for a certificate of appealability is applied is applied by the federal district court. It is a low bar, primarily designed to screen out appeals of frivilous pro se motions by prisoners. This isn't the case with Johnson. He has a long, documented history of hallucinations and severe mental illness. The state only offered a brief rebuttal (by someone unqualified under state law) of the defendant's expert. His appeal should never have been denied.
Right, maybe, but with so much of the process, reviewer after reviewer, agreeing that his case didn't merit overturning, it's easy to see why SCOTUS didn't feel like this was an exceptional moment to interfere in the state proceedings.
I haven't seen any convincing claim of an error in the process that doesn't come down to mere disagreement with the outcome.
It sounds like the applicant had his day(s) in court, regardless of what you or I or a Justice might think about how the courts ruled.
