Today in Supreme Court History: July 14

Barr v. Lee, 140 S.Ct. 2590 (decided July 14, 2020): stay of execution (actually denial of preliminary injunction) denied to death row inmates because their claim that execution by pentobarbital sodium injection was “cruel and unusual” was unlikely to command four votes for certiorari (the per curiam opinion points out the surprising [at least to me] fact that the Court has never found a method of execution to be cruel and unusual); Ginsburg and Breyer dissent on the basis that the death penalty is unconstitutional, Sotomayor because this issue should not be disposed of so hastily on an application for a stay (the lead petitioner, Daniel Lewis Lee, was executed the next day, the first federal execution in 17 years)