In the case of Terry Stewart, Director, Arizona Department of Correction, et al. v. Ramon Martinez-Villareal in 1997, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that a death row inmate could challenge his execution on grounds of mental incompetence despite having previously filed and lost a federal habeas corpus petition. The court held that such claims are not subject to restrictions placed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) on successive petitions because they cannot be raised until an execution date is set. This decision was based on Ford v Wainwright (1986), which prohibits executing mentally incompetent prisoners but does not specify when or how competency should be determined.

In the case of Terry Stewart, Director, Arizona Department of Correction, et al. v. Ramon Martinez-Villareal, Justice Scalia dissented from the majority opinion. He argued that federal courts should not have jurisdiction over a second habeas corpus petition filed by a death row inmate who was previously found incompetent to be executed but later regained competence. According to him, such cases fall under the purview of "second or successive" petitions as defined in 28 U.S.C §2244(b), which are generally prohibited unless they meet specific exceptions - none applicable here according to Scalia's interpretation. The dissenting justice believed that allowing this kind of repeated litigation undermines finality and wastes judicial resources.