Spirko motion for stay of execution denied for 2nd time in US District Court / Judge Frost admonishes US 6th Circuit over contradictory rulings

US District Ct Judge Gregory Frost today denied for a second time John Spirko's motion for a preliminary injunction to stay his execution scheduled for April 17, 2007.  As noted earlier today (here), Spirko's attorneys filed a motion for reconsideration of the first stay denial citing the recent contradictory rulings by the US 6th Circuit Ct of Appeals in the Lundgren and Henderson cases (lifting a stay of execution for Jeffrey Lundgren the night before his execution in October, but upholding a stay of execution for Jerome Henderson on Monday in a legal situation identical to that of Lundgren).  In both cases, the 6th Circuit rulings came with no written opinion or other explanation.

The difficulty caused to Judge Frost and other district court judges under the 6th Circuit's jurisdiction as a result of these unexplained rulings is best and most powerfully expressed by Judge Frost himself in today's ruling denying the Spriko stay of execution (7-page pdf).  It's an illuminating read for anyone wanting some insight into the shadowy workings of the US 6th Circuit Ct of Appeals - but still really only hints politely at what many court watchers already know:  There is internal warfare going on in the 6th Circuit over how death-penalty cases are handled, and the court's infighting has resulted in arbitrary life-and-death consequences in capital cases that have come before it - in the past, and still today.