The way i read the opinions is that the Supreme Court made a mistake, but it was not a power grab. It was in treating a declaratory judgment action brought because all other avenues had been taken and completed as a civil declaratory judgment action rather than as a collateral attack on the judgment and sentence in the criminal case. They apparently recognized that the stay request was essentially criminal in nature and tried twice to punt that issue over to the Court of Criminal Appeals. The CCA refused to rule either time on the merits of the stay. The first time, the CCA correctly ruled it lacked subject matter jurisdiction in a declaratory judgment action. That might have given the Supreme Court a clue about the true nature of the case before it, but they continued to treat it as some sort of hybrid civil case with a criminal case aspect that could be taken apart and dealt with piecemeal.
Meanwhile, the declaratory judgment action, stripped of the stay issue, was remanded to the trial court which ruled that the statute was unconstitutional because it deprived the petitioners of their right to access the courts. After the trial court ruled, that part of the case was sent back to the Supreme Court, which a second time sent the request for a stay pending appeal of the trial court's ruling to the CCA, this time with a formal determination by the Supreme Court pursuant to Art. 7 Sec. 4 of the Oklahoma Constitution that the CCA had jurisdiction to rule on the merits of the stay request. Lost in all of the argument is the fact that the constitutional provision cited was designed to head off these kinds of jurisdictional ping pong matches by giving the Supreme Court the final say on which court has jurisdiction. Even when the SC had ruled that the CCA had jurisdiction, the CCA refused to rule on the merits. The Supreme Court had an issue before it that it did not want to decide, but which the court that had jurisdiction was refusing to decide. The SC relied on a common-law "rule of necessity" and granted the stay.
The issue could have and should have been headed off in one of two ways. If the CCA had accepted jurisdiction over the stay request and ruled either way on the merits, the "constitutional crisis" could have been avoided. If on the other hand the Supreme Court had treated the declaratory judgment action as an impermissible collateral attack on the sentence, the "constitutional crisis" could have been avoided. Instead, the Supreme Court has now ruled that the statute was constitutional and has dissolved the stay. The political environment surrounding tonight's ruling, with the Governor's bellicose posturing and the threatened impeachment of the majority justices is troubling and was unnecessary, but that's Oklahoma politics. A lynch mob doesn't mix well with due process.
I do not have "strong feelings" about this CCA intrusion by the Supreme Court. I'll leave it at I am concerned about the naked power grab/over reach by the Supremes in this capital punishment issue. What I will note is that the entire premise of this thread is that the Supreme Court "got it right" with their log rolling or single subject rulings. If they got it wrong, then it is they--not the legislature--that is intruding on another's power (just like they did with the stay). Right? I simply am not convinced the Court was 100% correct. You are.
