Today in Supreme Court History: July 21

NCAA v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, 463 U.S. 1311 (decided July 21, 1983): White (a former NCAA star himself) stays decision against NCAA because certiorari would probably be granted (lower courts had held that arrangement banning televising of teams not selected by networks was illegal price-fixing under antitrust laws); cert was granted but White got tackled (i.e., the Court affirmed)

Delo v. Blair, 509 U.S. 823 (decided July 21, 1993): stay of execution denied by full Court because facts similar to recently-decided Herrera v. Collins decision (conviction upheld due to uncoerced written confession despite numerous post-trial witness affidavits); Blackmun, Stevens and Souter dissent, as they had in Herrera, basically on the argument that Herrera was wrongly decided

Barber v. Ivey, 143 S.Ct. 2545 (decided July 21, 2023): denies stay of execution in Alabama by lethal injection; in dissent Sotomayor (with Kagan and Jackson) point out that same Alabama agency had spent hours searching for veins, causing pain, and sometimes not killing the prisoners, leaving them with (sometimes) “nerve pain equivalent to electrocution”, and refused to disclose why those executions failed (Barber was executed two hours later)