Justice Kagan's First Vote is in Minority to Stay an Execution

Jeffrey Landrigan, the death row inmate hoping for the reprieve, was executed soon after the decision was handed down.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/sc-dc-1028-court-execution-20101027,0,6859358.story

"Washington…Justice Elena Kagan cast her first recorded vote on the Supreme Court late Tuesday, joining the liberals in dissent when the high court cleared the way for the execution of an Arizona murderer.

The 5-4 ruling overturned orders by a federal judge in Phoenix and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that had stopped the execution by lethal injection of Jeffrey Landrigan.

His lawyers, in a last-ditch appeal, had raised questions about one of the drugs used in the execution. Since the only U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental had suspended production, Arizona officials said they had obtained a supply of the drug from a British company."