Among the cases denied review by the Supreme Court today was Mata v. Nebraska, No. 08-5204. As previously noted here, Nebraska's Supreme Court held that the electric chair, the only method of execution authorized by state statute, violates the state's equivalent of the Eighth Amendment. However, Mata remains sentenced to death, and the federal high court today rejected his objection to that situation. (By resting its decision on the state constitution, the state court prevented the state from getting review.)

I'm told by an informed source that chances for a legislative fix next year are decent, now that the state legislature's anti-death-penalty crusader is termed out.