The Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously affirmed Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf's authority to postpone executions, reports the ABA Journal. Concerns regarding the defects in the death penalty system forced Wolf to issue temporary reprieves to five inmates who were scheduled for execution, which was immediately challenged by prosecutors who were led by Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams and Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who in separate cases argued that Wolf was not authorized to issue reprieves in order to halt executions.

York Daily Record writes that, a short time after being elected Governor last January, Wolf was concerned with the state death penalty system that he sees as, "riddled with flaws" and "anything but infallible," and that because of this, he would issue temporary reprieves.

The Supreme Court's decision says that the governor has been given authority by the constitution to grant reprieves without being required to stating an end date nor to give out a reason for doing so.

Wolf welcomed the decision, and said that the moratorium will be enforced pending a report from a legislative commission, which will mostly likely be submitted in 2016.

The use of death penalty, the Jurist reports, is a sensitive issue both in the US and abroad. News of botched executions, particularly the case of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma, where the incorrect lethal injection drugs caused a cardiac arrest leading to the death of Lockett, this was minutes after the execution was cancelled. Some states have currently stayed, or altogether repealed the death penalty in their respective territories.

The number of inmates in death row in Pennsylvania is shrinking, consisting of 184 inmates (3 females, and 181 males), though only three inmates have been executed since the 1976 United States Supreme Court decision that brought back the death penalty. The three inmates who were executed waived their right to appeal their execution.

1999 was the last time Pennsylvania executed an inmate.