Court Opinion

ID: 9429172
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:53.020591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:17.616053
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice Burger,
concurring:
I agree with the Court’s action vacating the temporary stay entered by Judge Emmett Cox, United States District Court, Mobile, Ala. This matter had never been before Judge Cox prior to April 21 and had been referred to him due to the absence of Judge William B. Hand, who had previously acted on the case and who was out of the State on judicial business. Far from being a matter in which there is hasty judicial action, this case has been heard and reviewed over the past six years, by not less than 14 state appellate judges and 13 federal judges, and this Court has previously acted on this case, see Hopper v. Evans, 456 U. S. 605 (1982).
This case falls within a familiar* pattern of literal “eleventh hour” efforts to frustrate judicial decrees after careful and painstaking judicial consideration over a period of years. For more than six months prior to April 21 the courts were open to consider the petition presented to Judge Cox at or about 5:30 p. m., Thursday, April 21, but counsel failed to present any application for relief during that period. At that late hour a petition that could have been presented long before was thrust upon a judge who had no previous contact with the case.
This Court is fully familiar with the records in the state and federal courts on Evans’ case; the claim now presented is wholly without merit and the Court appropriately vacates the stay of execution granted yesterday.

See Brooks v. Estelle, 459 U. S. 1061 (1982), and Mitchell v. Lawrence, 458 U. S. 1123 (1982).