Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSblog has this post correcting a mistaken New York Times story regarding stays of execution and the "rule of four." It only takes four votes for the Supreme Court to accept a case to be reviewed (grant certiorari), but it takes a majority of five to grant a stay. Traditionally, a fifth Justice has added the necessary vote to grant the stay when a case has been accepted for review. There has been no exception to this practice in a long time, but the Times article mistakenly equates four votes to grant a stay with four votes to grant certiorari. Tom notes they are not the same and that Chief Justice Roberts' confirmation hearing testimony involved the latter.