“The application for stay of execution of death presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied.”

No doubt Justice Thomas knows something about high-tech lynchings. He’s been around a few.

This was the “high” technology used: an injection of  pentobarbital, an “ultra-short action barbiturate,” which rendered Troy Davis unconscious; pancoromium bromide, which caused “complete, fast and sustained paralysis” of Troy Davis’s “skeletal striated muscles”; and potassium chloride, which stopped Troy Davis’s heart, and causing his death by cardiac arrest.

The Supreme Court didn’t elaborate on the matter of the stay of Troy Davis’s execution because it didn’t have to.

But in other cases, the Court must explain its opinion. This is what the Supreme Court said when asked to rule on whether there should be a recount of the votes cast in Florida in the 2000 election:

The issue is not, as the dissent puts it, whether “counting every legally cast vote can constitute irreparable harm.” One of the principal issues in the appeal we have accepted is precisely whether the votes that have been ordered to be counted are, under a reasonable interpretation of Florida law, “legally cast votes.” The counting of votes that are of questionable legality does in my view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner Bush, and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election. Count first, and rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires.

The same democratic stability that allows for someone who might be innocent to be executed. The same democratic stability that allows the US to join paragons of democracy China, Iran, North Korea, and Yemen as the worldwide leaders in executing the death penalty.

This is what Troy Davis said before his heart was stopped:

For those about to take my life, may God have mercy on your souls. May God bless your souls.