The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday lifted the Fifth Circuit's stay of execution for a man who sought to challenge the constitutionality of his death sentence on grounds that he was intellectually disabled, granting an emergency petition filed by Texas, which went on to execute the man later Thursday.

The execution of Edward Busby was scheduled for Thursday, but six days before, the Fifth Circuit granted him a reprieve as it awaited an expected Supreme Court ruling in Hamm v. Smith , a similar case involving intellectual disabilities out of Alabama.

After the high court granted Texas' application for emergency relief, the state's Department of Criminal Justice went forward with the execution via lethal injunction at a state facility in Huntsville, where Busby was declared deceased at 8:11 p.m., according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

In its two sentence order, the Supreme Court said the application, "presented to Justice [Samuel] Alito and by him referred to the court is granted."

Justice Elena Kagan said she would deny the application, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a short dissent, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, noting that the stay of execution was temporary but that the court was unable to tolerate "even a brief delay" in its completion.

"In capital cases, we rarely intervene to preserve life," Justice Jackson wrote. "I cannot understand the court's rush to extinguish it, much less in the circumstances of this case."

Texas prosecutors had told the high court in an emergency petition Monday that the Fifth Circuit's stay was "a late-night opinion bereft of reasoning and with absolutely no agreement on the basis for a stay."

Busby's attorneys called Texas' filing an attempt to "circumvent normal order via an emergency pleading when no emergency exists." They argued that state courts ignored medical experts' opinions that Busby is intellectually disabled, and that executing him would be unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

The Fifth Circuit panel split three ways in its opinions issued Friday. U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Higginson voted in favor of the stay until the Supreme Court issues its opinion in Hamm. U.S. Circuit Judge James Graves voted to grant habeas relief. And U.S. Circuit Judge Priscilla Richman voted against both.

Busby was convicted two decades ago of kidnapping, robbing and murdering a 78-year-old woman. Busby raised a claim under Atkins v. Virginia , a 2002 Supreme Court case holding that executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

State courts denied his Atkins claim, including the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in March 2025.

Justices heard oral arguments in Hamm in December. In that case, the state of Alabama is trying to execute Joseph Clifton Smith, who was convicted of murdering a man during a robbery. Smith later filed a state habeas petition that included a claim under Atkins.

Abraham Bonowitz, director of Death Penalty Action, called Busby's execution unjust and said in a statement that it will be the 600th execution in Texas since 1982.

"Even the prosecutor's expert agrees that Eddie Busby is intellectually disabled to the point that he should not be executed," he said. "This just shows that finality is more important than facts, and that this U.S. Supreme Court is actively reversing precedents which in the past have protected the least among us. This is yet another shameful day in the history of the court."

Representatives for the parties could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

Busby is represented by David Dow and Jeffrey Newberry of the University of Houston Law Center.

The government is represented by Ken Paxton, Brent Webster, Josh Reno, Tomee Heining and Jay Clendenin of the Texas Office of the Attorney General.

The cases are Eric Guerrero v. Edward Lee Busby, case number 25A1235, in the Supreme Court of the United States and Edward Lee Busby v. Eric Guerrero, case number 26-70004, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

--Editing by Drashti Mehta.

Update: This story has been updated to include confirmation of Busby's execution.