Last night the state of Alabama executed Ronald Smith, and the Supreme Court, by a 4-4 vote, denied a stay of execution.

However, as BuzzFeed notes, last month the Supreme Court voted to stay an execution by another Alabama man, Thomas Arthur, raising similar claims. A fifth vote to stay the Arthur execution came from Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote:

I do not believe that this application meets our ordinary criteria for a stay. This case does not merit the Court’s review: the claims set out in the application are purely fact-specific, dependent on contested interpretations of state law, insulated from our review by alternative holdings below, or some combination of the three. Four Justices have, however, voted to grant a stay. To afford them the opportunity to more fully consider the suitability of this case for review, including these circumstances, I vote to grant the stay as a courtesy.

That same “courtesy” vote does not seem to have been offered in last night’s execution, and as of yet we do not know why the Arthur execution merited courtesy and the Smith execution did not.

Read more at The Volokh Conspiracy