In a Wednesday dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor condemned the Supreme Court’s denial of a stay of execution and certiorari for Mississippi inmate Charles Ray Crawford, writing that the Court “abandons its duty to resolve this important question.”
Crawford was executed on Wednesday evening.
Why It Matters
Sotomayor’s dissent comes over a week since the Supreme Court started its term. The Court currently has a 6-3 conservative majority, and a recent Gallup poll found that over 40 percent of Americans, an all-time high, say the Court is “too conservative.”
Her dissent argues that the Court is shirking its duty to clarify constitutional law in capital cases, where individuals’ lives are on the line. More than half of the U.S. states, including Mississippi, have the death penalty.
What To Know
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court denied an application for stay of execution for Crawford, a Mississippi man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing college student Kristy Ray in 1993. The 59-year-old was pronounced dead at 6:15 pm after receiving a lethal injection, according to the Associated Press.
In the case Charles Ray Crawford v. Mississippi, which had been appealed to the Supreme Court, Crawford argues that his legal team admitted his guilt to a jury despite his “express instructions not to do so,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, begging the question of whether his Sixth Amendment rights were violated.
Sotomayor, who was joined by the Court’s other democratic justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that had the Court not denied his stay, and “Crawford could have proved that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated under our decision in McCoy v. Louisiana,” it is “likely” that he would have been “entitled to a new trial.”
The Court’s 2018 ruling in McCoy v. Louisiana held: “The Sixth Amendment guarantees a defendant the right to choose the objective of his defense and to insist that his counsel refrain from admitting guilt, even when counsel’s experienced-based view is that confessing guilt offers the defendant the best chance to avoid the death penalty.”
Sotomayor concluded her dissent, saying, “Charles Ray Crawford has identified an important constitutional issue that this Court has not addressed and has divided courts around the country,” noting, “The Court refuses to resolve that question, even though a man’s life is in the balance.”
What People Are Saying
Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction said, in part, in a Wednesday statement: “Despite a legal system that failed him, Charles Crawford (“Chuck”) spent every day in prison trying to be the best person, family member, friend, and Christian he could be. He was a model inmate in prison, and he was one of the rare people trusted with working inside and outside the building where he was housed. Chuck was known as a force for good in prison.”
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch wrote in an October 15 X post: “For nearly 30 years, the Attorney General’s Office has fought for justice for the Ray family and for his other victims, filing dozens of briefs in state and federal courts, including at the US and Mississippi Supreme Courts last week to fight Crawford’s last-ditch effort to stay his execution. While nothing can restore the innocent life that was taken from Ms. Ray’s loved ones, we pray that they and his other victims received long-awaited closure today.”
North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty said in a Wednesday X post: “Mississippi has executed #CharlesRayCrawford. He was the 38th person executed in the US and the 2nd person killed by Mississippi in 2025. Rest in peace, Charles. We remember your life and mourn your execution.”
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves wrote, in part, in an X post on October 13: “This is a solemn responsibility, and it is something that no one takes pleasure in. However, it is a responsibility I accept with the utmost seriousness in keeping with the oath I swore to faithfully carry out the duties of Governor. Mississippi is praying for Ms. Ray and her family. Justice must be served on behalf of victims. In Mississippi, it will be.”
