The Supreme Court began its new term with a mostly routine order list, declining to consider a range of appeals. But amid those denials, Justice Sonia Sotomayor used the lone separate writing to spotlight the enormous stakes of a death penalty case.

The familiar pattern was unmistakable. The Obama appointed justice once again focused on questions of crime and punishment that have not drawn the same public attention from her colleagues.

Her statement came in Mulkey v. Alabama, a case involving death row prisoner Steven Mulkey. Although Sotomayor agreed that the court should deny his petition, she warned about judicial conduct that could frighten prospective jurors and distort their independent judgment.

The statement followed an unexplained order last week from the court’s GOP appointed majority allowing Tennessee to proceed with the lethal injection of Christa Pike. The court’s three Democratic appointees dissented, with Sotomayor leading them.

Tennessee failed to carry out the death penalty for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. Pike survived, at least for the time being, what her lawyers described as a “torturous” botched execution.

In the Alabama case, Sotomayor stood alone in calling attention to the dangers surrounding jury selection in a capital proceeding. She wrote that such concerns are particularly urgent “where the defendant’s life hangs in the balance.”

Mulkey was sentenced to death for killing elderly couple Ching and Siu Mei Kao in 2018. Alabama said the killings followed “a dispute over thirty dollars’ worth of yard work.”

Mulkey’s Supreme Court petition argued that his constitutional rights were violated during jury selection. His lawyers said the trial judge publicly sanctioned and jailed a prospective juror for arriving late, doing so in front of the broader jury pool.

The lawyers also argued that the judge failed to examine how that episode affected the remaining potential jurors. According to the petition, there were indications that at least some members of the pool felt intimidated or otherwise influenced by what they had witnessed.

Sotomayor recounted that two prospective jurors voiced fears about honestly sharing their views. When one was questioned about an unwillingness to recommend the death penalty, the person asked whether they would “be charged or thrown in jail.”

Another prospective juror said they “kind of based [my opinion] on what the Judge told me, because I don’t want to get in trouble for my beliefs.” The remarks offered a stark glimpse of how courtroom authority could shape what potential jurors felt safe saying.

The judge assured those individuals that they would not be punished for their beliefs. But Sotomayor noted that the assurance “was given during the individual questioning and not in the presence of the rest of the jury pool.”

That distinction mattered because the other prospective jurors did not necessarily hear the clarification. Sotomayor said it was therefore unclear how many others “felt similarly but did not share their fear because they were not called for individual questioning.”

Even with those concerns, Sotomayor agreed with her colleagues that Mulkey’s petition did not qualify for Supreme Court review. His defense had not raised an objection during the state proceedings, creating a demanding procedural standard for the argument before the justices.

“Because that posture limits the scope of our review, I concur in the Court’s denial of certiorari,” Sotomayor wrote. Certiorari refers to petitions asking the justices to accept a case, and four members of the nine member court must vote to grant review.

Sotomayor explained that she wrote separately “to highlight that this case provides an example of why judges should restrain themselves from conducting any proceedings that are collateral to the trial in front of a jury.”

The justice warned that such conduct “can have a profoundly negative impact on members of the jury pool.” It can affect both what jurors are willing to tell a judge and whether they exercise independent judgment rather than follow what they think the judge personally believes.

That threat, Sotomayor wrote, “is especially acute in a capital case such as this one, where the defendant’s life hangs in the balance. To guard against it, judges should limit exposing a jury to collateral proceedings, particularly when those proceedings might frighten or intimidate the jury.”