"My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people."

[unblock]

21. indeed -- it went from 5-3 to uphold the conviction to 8-0 to overturn.

the author of what was to be the majority opinion changed his mind, so it would have been 4-4, which would have upheld the conviction, but without any written opinion or explanation.

opting instead for the alternative of overturning it based on a technicality seems to have been influenced by a desire to avoid not having any explanation for a decision in a high profile case.

my guess is that voting to overturn based on a technicality won the day thanks to a desire by the justices, in the end, to avoid tackling the substantive issues, while at the same time avoiding not putting out any opinion at all.