Executions stayed

DENVER — The 10th Circuit stayed the execution of two death row inmates in Oklahoma — John Marion Grant and Julius Jones — who were set to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 18. The panel ruled the inmates were improperly removed from a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s lethal injection protocol because they did identify alternative methods of execution in their complaint although they refused to check a box specifying which method they would prefer, citing “religious scruples about assisting in what they viewed as ‘suicide.’”