William J. Brennan, Jr.

“ There is no call to deny a district court the time it needs to consider properly a petitioner's claim. "It is . . . important that before we allow human lives to be snuffed out we be sure-emphatically sure-that we act within the law." ”

“ Rather, Winford Stokes raised an equal protection claim in an amendment to a petition for writ of habeas corpus pending in the District Court on April 5, 1990, before the current execution date had been set. #fn-s [1] The rush to judgment is instigated here by the State's insistence on vacating the District Court's grant of a stay to consider Mr. Stokes' claim.
"In lifting the stay imposed by the Court of Appeals, the Court has resorted to an exercise of power that is unusual and that should only be resorted to on the rare occasion in which a lower court has flagrantly abused its discretion." ”

“ McKellar, 494 U.S. 407, 415, 110 S.Ct. 1212, 1215, 108 L.Ed.2d 347, 351 (1990) (that claim is "within the 'logical compass' of an earlier decision, or indeed that it is 'controlled' by a prior decision" does not prevent it from being a "new rule" for purposes of retroactivity) . Thus, the mere fact that the Court today can point to an opinion of a dissenting Missouri Supreme Court Justice in 1983 hardly establishes that Mr. Stokes' claim is not "novel."
When a person's life is at stake we cannot tolerate such facile judgments. ”