In Tuesday's Hoffman v. Westcott, the Court denied a stay of execution; Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson would have granted a stay, but didn't write an opinion; and Justice Gorsuch dissented, for himself:
The State of Louisiana plans to execute Jessie Hoffman tonight. Mr. Hoffman is a Buddhist. And he argues that the State's chosen method of execution—nitrogen hypoxia—violates his rights under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. Nitrogen hypoxia will, he says, substantially burden his religious exercise by interfering with his meditative breathing as he dies. No one has questioned the sincerity of Mr. Hoffman's religious beliefs. Yet the district court rejected his RLUIPA claim anyway based on its own "find[ing]" about the kind of breathing Mr. Hoffman's faith requires.
That finding contravened the fundamental principle that courts have "no license to declare … whether an adherent has 'correctly perceived' the commands of his religion." The Court of Appeals failed to confront the district court's apparent legal error—or even to mention the RLUIPA claim Mr. Hoffman pressed on appeal. Perhaps that claim ultimately lacks merit. But the Fifth Circuit's unexplained omission leaves this Court poorly positioned to assess it. I would therefore grant the stay application and petition for writ of certiorari, vacate the judgment of the Fifth Circuit, and remand for that court to address Mr. Hoffman's RLUIPA claim in the first instance.
Note that Justice Gorsuch was speaking only about the district court's decision to interpret for itself what Buddhism demands (which is indeed something secular courts aren't allowed to do under First Amendment precedent), not the ultimate bottom line question of whether this form of execution could indeed be applied to Hoffman.
