in re:Lewis Williams v.

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 26, 2004
Docket04-3014
StatusPublished

This text of in re:Lewis Williams v. (in re:Lewis Williams v.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
in re:Lewis Williams v., (6th Cir. 2004).

Opinion

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION district court treated petitioner*s complaint as a second, or Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206 successive, petition1 and transmitted it to the court. ELECTRONIC CITATION: 2004 FED App. 0058P (6th Cir.) File Name: 04a0058p.06 The § 1983 action challenging the method of administering drugs at his execution is, as he concedes, to be treated as a second habeas action under current Sixth Circuit decisions. UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS The majority of the panel would deny permission to file a FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT second habeas on the grounds presented. They have never IN THE MATTERS OF: LEWIS WILLIAMS, been presented to the state court, so there has been no JR. AND JOHN GLENN ROE exhaustion. The affidavits in support of a preliminary _______________________________________________ injunction, in essence, state that if lethal injection is not administered properly, petitioner could experience severe pain without displaying any sign of it. Responsive affidavits UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS detailing the procedure indicate that the concern expressed by petitioner is so unlikely as to be immeasurable. FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT _________________ Petitioner essentially bases his request for a stay of execution on the Supreme Court having granted certiorari in IN RE LEWIS WILLIAMS, JR. X Nelson v. Campbell, No. 03-6821, 2003 WL 22327593, 72 Petitioner-Appellant - USWL 3363 (Dec. 1, 2003). Nelson involves a case - involving a prisoner facing the death penalty whose - No. 04-3014 peripheral veins were unavailable and who had to be sedated > through the central venous system. The state in Nelson chose - the “cut down” technique which allegedly requires more N experience and medical training than the usually-performed per cutaneous technique. The Court granted certiorari to answer the following question: Filed: January 12, 2004 Whether a complaint brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by a death-sentenced state prisoner, who seeks to stay his BEFORE: KENNEDY, SUHRHEINRICH and MOORE, execution in order to pursue a challenge to the Circuit Judges procedures for carrying out his execution, is properly KENNEDY, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Lewis Williams filed recharacterized as a habeas corpus petition under this §1983 action in the district court challenging the method 28 U.S.C. § 2254? of administering the lethal injection of drugs at his execution as a constitutional violation of his right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment and seeking an injunction to postpone his execution scheduled for January 14, 2004. The 1 The complaint also sought similar relief for John Glenn Roe scheduled for execution February 3, 2004.

-2- The Court has also acted on at least two cases involving sodium is not administered for a sufficient length of time to similar last-minute challenges to the method of execution of complete the other steps of the procedure, petitioner will by injection, both from the Fourth Circuit. In Rowsey v. Beck, suffer severe pain. A lay person who experienced this No. 04-6073 (4th Cir. Jan. 8, 2004), motion to vacate granted, difficulty describes the pain in her affidavit. In response, the Beck v. Rowsey, 504 U.S. __, 2004 WL 40382 (Jan. 8, 2004), state submits an affidavit from an extremely well-qualified the court vacated the stay granted by the Fourth Circuit. In physician explaining why, in the dose to be used by the state, Reid v. Johnson, No. 03-7916 (4th Cir. Dec. 17, 2003), two (2) grams, the condition described by plaintiff*s expert motion to vacate stay denied, Johnson v. Reid, 504 U.S. __, will almost certainly not occur. He notes that when thiopental 2003 WL 22970950 (Dec. 18, 2003), the district court had sodium is commonly used for general anesthesia in surgery, granted an injunction staying an execution. The court of it is normally administered in a dose of 300 to 400 appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court denied the state*s milligrams. motion to vacate. Of most relevance to the present petition, however, is the Court*s denial of application for stay of Petitioner’s motions for remand to the district court, for execution in Zimmerman v. Johnson, 2003 U.S. Lexis 9199, preliminary injunctive relief and for stay of execution are 72 USLW 3406 (Dec. 15, 2003). In Zimmerman, the Fifth DENIED. Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the action on the procedural ground that § 1983 is not an appropriate vehicle for In order that petitioner have counsel to pursue any possible challenges to the method of execution and held that applicant habeas relief from the order, Stephen A. Ferrell is appointed should have proceeded by applying for a writ of habeas to represent petitioner on such proceedings. corpus. The four Justices that dissented from the denial of stay stressed that the Court should stay execution until Nelson was decided. The majority, however, clearly disagreed. We understand this decision to mean that this Circuit is free to follow its prior precedent with regard to this question until the Supreme Court issues its decision in Nelson. Accordingly, the majority of the panel is of the opinion that we should continue to follow Sixth Circuit precedent in In re Sapp, 118 F.3d 460, 464 (6th Cir. 1997) and treat this case as a second, or successive, petition. The district court properly transferred the case as filed to this court so it could pass on it as a request for a second petition. We decline to permit the claim to be filed as a second petition. It has never been presented to a state court. Indeed, petitioner does not seriously claim it meets the requirements for a second petition. Petitioner asks that we stay our decision to await the decision of the Supreme Court in Nelson. He proffers affidavits from a physician who states that if thiopental

-3- -4- In re: Lewis Williams, Jr.; No. 04-3014 the failure to require a continuous infusion of thiopental places the condemned inmate at a needless and SUHRHEINRICH, Circuit Judge, concurring. I concur significant risk for the conscious experience of paralysis in Judge Kennedy’s opinion. However, I would simply direct during the excruciating pain of both suffocation and the the Warden to carry out the execution in the manner intravenous injection of potassium chloride. advocated by the petitioners’ expert. The petitioners do not challenge the fact of their execution; they challenge only the Motion to Stay and Abey Proceedings, at 13 (quoting Heath method currently employed by the State of Ohio. By affidavit Affidavit ¶ 17). they have proposed an alternative method which they advocate does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. If the Warden is ordered to follow the method advanced by The affidavit of the petitioners’ expert, Dr. Mark J.S. Heath, the petitioners’ chosen expert, then the procedural question which is incorporated into the petitioners’ “Motion to Stay of whether the claim is properly considered a § 1983 action or and Abey Proceedings,” states in relevant part: a successive habeas petition will be moot, as the petitioners would have received the relief that they request. J) The benefits of thiopental in the operating room engender serious risks in the execution chamber. Based on the information I have available to me concerning Ohio’s execution protocol, a two (2) gram dose of sodium thiopental is apparently administered in a single injection from a single syringe. By contrast, based on my research and the research of others into the procedures for executing human beings by means of lethal injection, the original design of the lethal injection protocol called for the continuous intravenous administration of an ultrashort-acting barbiturate.

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Selvage v. Collins
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David Joseph Steffen v. Arthur Tate, Jr., Warden
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In Re Sapp
118 F.3d 460 (Sixth Circuit, 1997)
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