http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/21/us/21death.html

“…the court stayed his execution…and told the federal district court in Tallahassee to reconsider his argument that lethal injection was unconstitutionally cruel.”

“The district court rejected the argument again this month without holding a hearing, a decision upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta.”

One wonders how the members voting against this stay can issue an order that is ignored, grant and appeal in June and still allow the execution to go forward.

Words in the Harris opinion that distinguish the case include the ones I quoted from the first line of the opinion. Whether brought in habeas or S. 1983, the claim that “execution by lethal gas” is unconstitutional in every situation “could have been brought more than a decade ago.” Of course, your amicus in Hill attempts to conflate the claim that a certain LI protocol is flawed with the claim that LI is always inhumane, but the Court ruled 9-0 against that view. See also Nelson. The Court cited Gomez to show this difference.

federalist (and Jeff) just to clarify, when I say there was no stay, I mean that there was no unexpired warrant, and thus nothing to stay, after the Hill Supreme Court decision. The appellate court waited two months for Bush to issue a warrant.

IOW, sends an ugly message, but not necessarily an unjust one. I think it does, but reasonable minds will differ.

I’m not sure where the previous commenter disputed that “the California Director of Corrections, argued that the execution of Robert Alton Harris should go forward.” Snideness is always a dangerous game.

If this issue was there for years, the Supremes also very easily could have taken up a similar case that would not have resulted in this particular result. This “remedyless” result (in practice) was a bit ridiculous, if technically reasonable.

Use some other case to deal with the injection issue. btw I also recall the Gomez case was particularly messy, involving repeated last minute reversals, finally resulting in a slamdown on the 9th Cir. Again, on that pt, this case is not exactly the same.

Nope. Mr. Gomez, the California Director of Corrections, argued that the execution of Robert Alton Harris should go forward. Did you actually read the opinion, or is your comment based on what you read about it elsewhere?

Not a single word in the opinion indicates that it is based on the distinction you claim. The sole reason given is the raising of the claim at the eleventh hour for no good reason. The cases are not distinguishable on the basis of any fact given by the Court as a basis for its decision.

That’s not to say he doesn’t want to stall the execution — obviously, he does. But his claim is peculiar to the method of execution that he expects Florida to use, even though as of the filing of his petition, Florida did not inform him what that method would be. If it were a challenge to lethal injection itself, he could have filed (and probably would have been required to) well before.

First, my point was that, unlike Delaware and the feds, Governor Bush was not content to simply let the murderer get rewarded for his last-minute stall tactic

Second, the underlying point that you miss is that states have a right to have executions be carried out in an orderly process. If prisoners have valid claims about lethal injection, then they need to bring them early in the process, not wait until 5 days before an execution. What Gomez and Hill stand for is the proposition that states should not be jerked around by these last minute claims.

federalist, there was no stay. Bush and the federal courts colluded to kill the case, and Mr. Hill.