FRANK ATWOOD V. DAVID SHINN, No. 22-15821 (9th Cir. 2022)
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Plaintiff sued various Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Reentry (“ADCRR”) officials and the Arizona Attorney General (collectively “Defendants”) challenging Defendants’ proposed protocol for his execution. Plaintiff filed a motion for a preliminary injunction prohibiting his execution until such time as Defendants can assure the district court that his execution would comply with various federal statutes and the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The district court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction and Plaintiff appealed and filed two motions to stay his execution.
The Ninth Circuit denied the motions because: (1) it deferred to the district court’s finding that Defendants’ accommodations for Plaintiff’s degenerative spinal disease preclude a finding that their lethal injection protocol creates a substantial risk of severe pain; (2) even assuming without deciding that Defendants’ Execution Protocol may give rise to a liberty interest, there is insufficient evidence that Plaintiff’s due process rights were violated; and (3) given that Defendants shall execute Plaintiff by lethal injection, he lacks standing to challenge Defendants’ protocol for execution by lethal gas.
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