October Ends With No Executions

For the first time in nearly three years, a month passed with no executions in the United States.

No death sentences were carried out in October, as judges and elected officials effectively halted executions following the Supreme Court's decision to rule on lethal injection procedures in a case from Kentucky.

The last month with no inmate put to death was December 2004.

On Tuesday, the high court halted an execution in Mississippi. The reprieve for Earl Wesley Berry, minutes before he was scheduled to die, was the third granted by the justices since they agreed in late September to hear the Kentucky case.

The result of the delays: …