I see many people responding to this tweet arguing theology and law.

But Martin's claim isn't true to begin with. On the denial of a stay application, the justices don’t have to announce their votes. We know only that 3 more liberal justices chose to do so. ACB didn't. https://twitter.com/JamesMartinSJ/status/1329774600553721860

Reminder: when SCOTUS rules on an application, we know only at a minimum that five justices voted for it, plus whatever else they tell us.

Here, Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan noted dissents, but that does not tell us how ACB or any of the others voted in particular.

So this vote could have been 5-4 or it could have been 6-3. But the point is, we don't actually know.

So numbnuts going on about "rawr, death penalty rawr not Catholic" is really besides the point.

Unless you guys like arguing about theology on Twitter. Damn mutants.

I suppose also it could have been 5-3-1.

But, anyway, we don't know. This is one of the features of the shadow docket that makes it disturbingly opaque since often lives are on the line and justices don't have to explain themselves.