This evening the United States Supreme Court stayed the execution of Jimmy Callahan one hour before he was scheduled to be killed. Because a stay of execution had been granted six weeks ago, there was no expectation that Mr. Callahan would face execution until the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday surprisingly vacated the stay that had been in place and reinstated Mr. Callhan’s execution date with less than 40 hours notice.
The “almost execution” of Mr. Callahan this evening took place despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s review of Baze v. Kentucky, which has questioned the constitutionality of lethal injection and suspended the scheduling of executions in every other state except Alabama.