Sotomayor Casts First Supreme Court Vote

(CN) - Newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor cast her first vote Monday evening to halt an execution in Ohio, though the 5-4 majority rejected the death-row inmate's plea for a stay.

Convicted hit man Jason Getsy, 33, faces lethal injection at 8 a.m. Pacific time today.

He was convicted of shooting Charles Serafino seven times in 1995 as part of a murder-for-hire plot. Serafino survived, but his mother, Ann Serafino, was killed in the shooting.

Getsy's lawyers argued that their client should be spared, because other key participants in the scheme were not given the death penalty.

Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor dissented from the court's two-sentence order denying a stay of execution.

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