Barton v. Warden Stange, No. 20-1985 (8th Cir. 2020)
Annotate this Case
Petitioner sought a petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254 and concurrently sought a stay of execution. The district court entered an order granting the motion for stay of execution on the basis that it required more time to consider the merits of petitioner's claims.
The Eighth Circuit questioned the applicability of the authorities the district court relied on to enter a stay solely on the basis of time constraints that purportedly prevented even a preliminary consideration of the merits of the two issues petitioner has raised to determine whether he has a significant likelihood of succeeding on either of them. Accordingly, the court vacated the stay of execution and remanded with instructions to dismiss the petition for habeas corpus relief, because the court saw no possibility of success on the merits of either of petitioner's competency claim and actual innocence claim.
Court Description: [Per Curiam. Before Loken, Gruender, and Grasz, Circuit Judges] THIS OPINION WAS FILED ON SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2020. Prisoner Case - State Habeas - DEATH PENALTY MATTER. The district court granted a stay of execution on the basis that it required more time to consider the merits of the claims of the petition for writ of habeas corpus. Because the merits are readily apparent that Barton cannot demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merit of his competency claim or satisfy the test for asserting actual innocence, the stay of execution is vacated and the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss the habeas petition. [ May 17, 2020 ]
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.