Habeas corpus petitions filed directly in the U.S. Supreme Court -- as opposed to asking them to review denial of a petition by a lower court -- used to be a zero-chance proposition. After the Troy Davis case, discussed here, we can't say it's zero any more. It's almost zero. The Court today denied the original habeas petition of Khristian Oliver. Michael Graczyk has this story on the execution for AP.

For more background, there is this story yesterday by Christy Wooten in the Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel.