Over 3 A.M. Dissent, Supreme Court Says Alabama Execution May Proceed

That decision followed a 5-to-4 ruling in February to allow the execution of a Muslim inmate in Alabama after his request to have his imam be present was denied, with the majority saying he should have asked sooner. In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the majority was “profoundly wrong.” In March, the court halted the execution of a Buddhist inmate in Texas in similar circumstances, over two noted dissents, with the majority apparently satisfied that the request had been timely.

In his dissent on Friday, Justice Breyer reviewed the proceedings in Mr. Price’s case and said undue haste had undermined justice. Justices Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joined his dissent in the case, Dunn v. Price, No. 18A1053.

“Should anyone doubt that death sentences in the United States can be carried out in an arbitrary way,” Justice Breyer wrote, “let that person review the following circumstances as they have been presented to our court this evening.”

He said his colleagues had turned away his request to discuss the matter in person.

“I requested that the court take no action until tomorrow, when the matter could be discussed at conference,” he wrote, referring to a private meeting that is regularly scheduled for most Friday mornings during the court’s term. “I recognized that my request would delay resolution of the application and that the state would have to obtain a new execution warrant, thus delaying the execution by 30 days.

“But in my judgment, that delay was warranted, at least on the facts as we have them now,” Justice Breyer wrote.

Alabama officials expressed outrage over the delay after the death warrant expired.

“Tonight, in the middle of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, the family of Pastor Bill Lynn was deprived of justice,” Attorney General Steven T. Marshall said. “They were, in effect, revictimized by a killer trying to evade his just punishment.”

Mr. Marshall complained that Mr. Price had long “dodged his death sentence for the better part of three decades by employing much the same strategy he has pursued tonight — desperately clinging to legal maneuverings to avoid facing the consequences of his heinous crime.” He vowed that Mr. Lynn’s “day of justice will come.”