One can argue whether or not there should be a moratorium on carrying out death sentences by lethal injection pending a Supreme Court decision. However, there is unquestionably only one way for this to happen under the laws and constitution of the State of Texas.

This is it.

Signaling an indefinite halt to executions in Texas, the state’s highest criminal appeals court late Tuesday stayed the lethal injection of a 28-year-old Honduran man who was scheduled to be put to death Wednesday.

The reprieve by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was granted a week after the United States Supreme Court agreed to consider whether a form of lethal injection constituted cruel and unusual punishment barred under the Eighth Amendment. On Thursday, the Supreme Court stepped in to halt a planned execution in Texas at the last minute, and though many legal experts interpreted that as a signal for all states to wait for a final ruling on lethal injection before any further executions, Texas officials said they planned to move ahead with more.

As a result, Tuesday’s ruling by the Texas court was seen as a sign that judges in the nation’s leading death penalty state were taking guidance from the Supreme Court and putting off imminent executions.

The Texas court order gave state authorities up to 30 days to explain in legal papers why the execution of the inmate, Heliberto Chi, should proceed. With responses then certain from defense lawyers, the effect of the order was to put off the execution for months, lawyers said.

Some want the governor to implement such a moratorium. Under state law and the state constitution, he cannot do so. His powers to delay or prevent an execution are incredibly limited (as I have been pointing out since George W. Bush ran for President in 2000, the Texas governor has weakest pardon and reprieve power in the 50 states). That puts the ball into the hands of the courts.

But I also urge Rick Perry to take another action that is within his power, one that would settle the question of lethal injection here in Texas.

Rick Perry is correct in not acting in this case. If a moratorium is truly necessary, he ought to call the legislature back into session to consider one -- and perhaps also legislation restoring either hanging or the firing squad as the form of execution in Texas, rendering moot the need for a moratorium at all.

After all, those two methods are unquestionably acceptable under the Eighth Amendment -- for they were in use when the Amendment was adopted, and clearly contemplated as acceptable by the Founders.

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