This is an unprecedented decision. It’s not a vacation a stay. It’s a grant of cert before judgment and a merits decision designating a new state of execution. Without any argument. Without any reasoning. This is not what justice is supposed to look like. https://twitter.com/jordan_s_rubin/status/1350294544890425345

Literally the only exigent circumstances justifying the extraordinary grant of cert before judgment is that a change in administration is happening in five days. It’s very hard to see the Court as an apolitical branch after the way it has dealt with these execution cases.

This is a political decision, not a doctrinal one and not one that is in any way consistent with the norms and precedents governing Supreme Court practice.

In other words, the Court is endorsing the policy preferences of a lame-duck administration that was democratically elected out of office for the sole purpose of precluding the new administration from effectuating a different policy judgment in a few days.