Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-14-10024/USCOURTS-ca11-14-10024-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 14-10024

________________________

D. C. Docket No. 3:13-cv-01587-TJC-JBT 

ASKARI ABDULLAH MUHAMMAD, 

f.k.a. THOMAS KNIGHT,

 Plaintiff - Appellant,

versus

SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, 

WARDEN, FLORIDA STATE PRISON, 

ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF FLORIDA, 

DOES 1–50

in their official capacity,

 Defendants - Appellees.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

________________________

(January 7, 2014)

Before MARCUS, WILSON, and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

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Askari Muhammad murdered a prison guard, Richard James Burke, by stabbing 

him more than a dozen times with a knife made from a sharpened serving spoon, and 

a Florida trial court convicted Muhammad of first-degree murder and sentenced him 

to death. When he murdered Burke, Muhammad was already serving a death sentence 

for his separate murders of a Miami couple. State and federal courts have affirmed his 

death sentence on direct and collateral review. 

On October 21, 2013, the Governor of Florida signed a death warrant for 

Muhammad, who is scheduled to be executed on January 7, 2014, at 6 p.m.

Muhammad then filed in the district court a civil action challenging the method of 

execution in Florida as cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment, 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983, even though the Supreme Court of Florida, on December 19, 2013, rejected

the identical claim and ruled that the method of execution is not cruel or unusual. See 

Muhammad v. State, No. SC13-2105, 2013 WL 6869010 (Fla. Dec. 19, 2013). He also 

filed a motion for a stay of execution and an amended motion for a stay of execution, 

both of which the district court denied. Muhammad now appeals to our Court and 

asks us to reverse the decisions of the district court and to grant a stay of execution. 

We AFFIRM the denial of the motions for a stay of execution by the district court,

and we DENY the application for a stay of execution Muhammad filed in our Court.

I. BACKGROUND

On October 29, 2013, less than two months before this federal litigation began, 

Muhammad filed in a circuit court of Florida a motion to vacate the judgment of his 

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conviction and sentence, which raised an identical challenge to the use of midazolam 

hydrochloride in the three-drug lethal injection protocol that he now raises in federal 

court. Muhammad argued in the circuit court that the use of midazolam 

hydrochloride, the first drug in the three-drug lethal injection protocol that the State 

of Florida approved on September 9, 2013, violates the prohibition of cruel and 

unusual punishments in the Eighth Amendment. The motion alleged that midazolam 

hydrochloride does not effectively anesthetize the inmate before the second and third 

drugs are administered, and, as a result, the inmate is subject to “intolerable risks of 

pain and suffering.” On November 18, 2013, the Supreme Court of Florida stayed 

Muhammad’s execution and ordered an evidentiary hearing on the effect of 

midazolam hydrochloride. On November 21, 2013, an evidentiary hearing was held, in 

which Agent Jonathan Feltgan, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement Inspector, 

Dr. Mark Heath, an expert for the defense, and Dr. Roswell Lee Evans, an expert for 

the State, testified. After the evidentiary hearing, the circuit court denied relief on the 

grounds that the dosage of midazolam hydrochloride would render a person insensate 

and there was no evidence that the use of the drug in the three-drug protocol would

result in a substantial risk of serious harm. 

The Supreme Court of Florida affirmed the decision of the circuit court that 

the use of midazolam hydrochloride did not create a substantial risk of serious harm, 

as follows:

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The Supreme Court’s plurality decision in Baze [v. Rees] held that 

the petitioners in that case “have not carried their burden of showing 

that the risk of pain from maladministration of a concededly humane 

lethal injection protocol” constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. [553 

U.S. 35, 41, 128 S. Ct. 1520, 1526 (2008)]. Muhammad makes a similar 

claim in this case that, if not properly administered and if the individual's 

level of consciousness is not properly determined, the use of midazolam 

hydrochloride will result in severe and needless suffering when the two 

subsequent drugs are administered. However, Dr. Heath agreed that the 

dosage of midazolam hydrochloride called for in the protocol, if 

properly administered together with adherence to the procedures for 

determining consciousness, will result in an individual who is deeply 

unconscious and who would feel no pain when the remaining drugs are 

administered.

We reject Muhammad's invitation to presume that the DOC will 

not act in accordance with its lethal injection procedures adopted by the 

DOC. The sufficiency of those procedures, other than the recent 

substitution of the midazolam hydrochloride as the first drug, were 

previously approved by this Court after a comprehensive evidentiary 

hearing in Lightbourne v. McCollum, 969 So. 2d 326 (Fla. 2007). When we 

relinquished for an evidentiary hearing in Valle [v. State] to examine the 

safety and efficacy of pentobarbital, which had been substituted as the 

first drug in the three-drug lethal injection protocol, we reiterated that 

the portion of Florida’s lethal injection protocol ensuring that an inmate 

will be unconscious prior to administration of the second and third 

drugs has not been altered since the protocol was approved in 

Lightbourne. Valle, 70 So. 3d at 541 n.12. Under that protocol, “he will 

not be injected with the final two drugs, and the execution will be 

suspended until Valle is unconscious.” Id. In the instant case, as we said 

in Valle, the remainder of the protocol has not been revised. We 

presume that the DOC will follow its own procedures and Muhammad 

will not be injected with the final two drugs until he is unconscious.

We acknowledge that, as we explained in Lightbourne, if the inmate 

is not fully unconscious when the second and third drugs, vecuronium 

bromide and potassium chloride, are administered, the inmate will suffer 

pain. See Lightbourne, 969 So. 2d at 351. However, we agree with the 

circuit court that Muhammad has not demonstrated that the conditions 

presenting this risk are “sure or very likely” to cause serious illness or 

needless suffering and give rise to “sufficiently imminent dangers” under 

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the standard set forth in Baze. Thus, we reject his constitutional 

challenge to the use of midazolam hydrochloride in the lethal injection 

procedure. See also Valle, 70 So.3d at 540–41 (rejecting challenge to 

newly-revised protocol substituting pentobarbital for the first drug in the 

three-drug protocol because Valle failed to show that the conditions 

presenting the risk must be sure or very likely to cause serious illness and 

needless suffering and give rise to sufficiently imminent dangers).

Muhammad, 2013 WL 6869010, at *10–11 (footnotes omitted). On December 27, 

2013, Muhammad petitioned for a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court of the 

United States, which is still pending. 

On December 23, 2013, Muhammad filed a complaint in the district court 

raising the same challenge to the lethal injection protocol against Michael Crews, in 

his official capacity as the Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections, John 

Palmer, in his official capacity as the Warden of Florida State Prisons, Pam Bondi, in 

her official capacity as the Attorney General of Florida, and Does 1-50, executioners 

for the State of Florida. Muhammad’s federal complaint alleged, like his state-court 

motion, that the use of midazolam hydrochloride, the first drug in the three-drug 

lethal injection protocol, violates the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments in 

the Eighth Amendment. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The federal complaint alleged verbatim 

that midazolam hydrochloride, used to render the inmate unconscious, is not as 

effective as other drugs used as anesthetics in executions. The complaint alleged that 

the consciousness check currently in use is inadequate to ensure the inmate remains 

unconscious for the entire execution. Moreover, the complaint alleged that midazolam 

hydrochloride takes more time to take effect, but that the Department of Corrections 

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did not adjust its lethal injection protocol to increase the amount of time between the 

injection of midazolam hydrochloride and the second and third drugs and “the failure 

to adjust the protocol or wait the prescribed amount of time creates a substantial risk 

of harm to Mr. Muhammad because he will be injected with an agonizing paralytic 

before the midazolam has ablated consciousness.” The federal complaint relied on 

news articles, which reported that an inmate moved in a previous execution after the 

drug was administered, and testimony from the evidentiary hearing on the use of the 

drug ordered by the Supreme Court of Florida. 

Muhammad also filed a motion to stay his execution, which the district court 

denied. Muhammad argued that a stay was warranted because the testimony from the

state-court evidentiary hearing established that the use of midazolam hydrochloride 

created a substantial risk of serious harm. The district court denied the motion 

because Muhammad failed to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the 

merits. The district court ruled that the statute of limitations barred his claim. 

Alternatively, the district court ruled that Muhammad’s Eighth Amendment challenge 

was unlikely to succeed on the merits. 

Muhammad filed a motion for reconsideration of the denial of the stay, which 

the district court denied. Before the district court ruled on the motion, the district 

court ordered the Florida officials to produce documents it disclosed in other statecourt litigation challenging the lethal injection protocol. The officials objected to the 

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order, but complied in part. After reviewing the execution logs and other documents 

produced by the officials, the district court denied the motion for reconsideration. 

Based on the documents produced by Florida officials, Muhammad filed an 

amended complaint and an amended motion to stay his execution. The amended 

complaint relied on execution logs produced by the Department of Corrections, in 

addition to the articles about a past execution and testimony from the evidentiary 

hearing. The amended complaint argued that the execution log of Agent Jonathon 

Feltgen, an execution monitor, did not chart the amount of time between the 

administration of midazolam hydrochloride and the second drug, which is “a critical 

part of the constitutional analysis.” The amended complaint alleged that “[t]he failure 

to accurately and adequately document and detail the events that the monitors are 

observing demonstrates the trained or ingrained desire to keep secret any perceived 

problems that occur in an execution,” and “[t]his culture of secrecy places Mr. 

Muhammad at a substantial risk of serious harm.” 

The district court denied the amended motion to stay the execution. The court 

ruled that Muhammad “has failed to show a substantial likelihood of success on the 

merits of [his] lethal injection claim, even as amended.” Muhammad timely appealed 

the denial of the motion to stay the execution and the denial of the amended motion 

to stay the execution on January 3, 2014. He also filed an application to stay his

execution in our Court on January 6, 2014. 

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

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We review the denial of a stay of execution for abuse of discretion. See Powell v. 

Thomas, 641 F.3d 1255, 1257 (11th Cir. 2011). We will grant a stay of execution only if 

the moving party establishes that: “(1) he has a substantial likelihood of success on the 

merits; (2) he will suffer irreparable injury unless the injunction issues; (3) the stay 

would not substantially harm the other litigant; and (4) if issued, the injunction would 

not be adverse to the public interest.” Id.

III. DISCUSSION

The district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied the motion to stay 

the execution and the amended motion to stay the execution, nor will we grant the

application for a stay of execution filed in our Court. Muhammad cannot establish 

that he has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. The Supreme Court of 

Florida has already decided his Eighth Amendment claim, Muhammad, 2013 WL 

6869010, at *10–11, and res judicata bars his federal complaint. The State of Florida 

has raised the defense of res judicata in both the district court and in our Court. 

Muhammad has never offered an explanation to rebut the argument that res judicata 

bars his federal complaint. 

When we consider “whether to give res judicata effect to a state court judgment, 

we ‘must apply the res judicata principles of the law of the state whose decision is set 

up as a bar to further litigation.’” Green v. Jefferson Cnty. Comm’n, 563 F.3d 1243, 1252 

(11th Cir. 2009) (quoting Kizzire v. Baptist Health Syst., Inc., 441 F.3d 1306, 1308–09 

(11th Cir. 2006)). Florida law establishes that “[a] judgment on the merits rendered in 

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a former suit between the same parties or their privies, upon the same cause of action, 

by a court of competent jurisdiction, is conclusive not only as to every matter which 

was offered and received to sustain or defeat the claim, but as to every other matter 

which might with propriety have been litigated and determined in that action.” Fla. 

Dep’t of Transp. v. Juliano, 801 So. 2d 101, 105 (Fla. 2001) (quoting Kimbrell v. Paige, 448 

So. 2d 1009, 1012 (Fla. 1984)). In other words, a judgment on the merits bars a laterfiled complaint when the following four conditions are present: “(1) identity of the 

thing sued for; (2) identity of the cause of action; (3) identity of persons and parties to 

the action; and (4) identity of quality in persons for or against whom [the] claim is 

made.” Brown v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 611 F.3d 1324, 1332 (11th Cir. 2010) (internal 

quotation mark omitted). Florida law defines identical causes of action as causes 

“sharing similarity of facts essential to both actions.” Fields v. Sarasota Manatee Airport 

Auth., 953 F.2d 1299, 1307–08 (11th Cir. 1992) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Under the Florida law of res judicata, the rejection of Muhammad’s Eighth 

Amendment claim by the Supreme Court of Florida on December 19, 2013, bars his 

attempt to litigate that claim anew in federal court. See Fla. Dep’t of Transp., 801 So. 2d 

at 105 (“[A] judgment rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction, on the merits, is 

a bar to any future suit between the same parties or their privies on the same cause of 

action, so long as it remains unreversed.” (quoting McGregor v. Provident Trust Co., 162 

So. 323, 327 (Fla. 1935))). The decision rendered by the Supreme Court of Florida was 

a judgment on the merits that rejected the same claim Muhammad now alleges in 

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federal court: the use of midazolam hydrochloride in Florida’s three-drug lethal 

injection protocol creates a substantial risk of serious harm. The cause of action is the 

same in federal court as it was in state court because both actions involve similar facts 

essential to the Eighth Amendment claim: allegations that an inmate executed in 

October 2013 moved minutes after the administration of midazolam hydrochloride; 

allegations that midazolam hydrochloride does not last as long as other drugs used as 

anesthesia in executions; allegations that midazolam hydrochloride requires more time 

to take effect; and allegations that the Department of Corrections fails to follow 

protocol during executions by failing to ensure that the inmate is unconscious. We 

acknowledge that the amended complaint incorporates factual allegations derived 

from the execution logs that Florida officials disclosed to Muhammad and the district 

court after the Supreme Court of Florida issued its decision. But those execution logs 

provide only more detailed factual allegations about previous executions that 

Muhammad extensively discussed in his motion for relief that the Supreme Court of 

Florida rejected. Finally, the parties involved in the state-court action and the federal 

lawsuit are also the same. The individuals named in the federal lawsuit are sued in 

their official capacity and are in privity with the State of Florida, the defendant in the 

state-court action. See Welch v. Laney, 57 F.3d 1004, 1009 (11th Cir. 1995) (“[W]here a 

plaintiff brings a[] [§ 1983] action against a public official in his official capacity, the 

suit is against the office that official represents, and not the official himself.”). 

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Because res judicata bars Muhammad from relitigating these claims in his 

federal complaint, Muhammad has failed to establish a substantial likelihood that can 

succeed on the merits. The district court did not err when it denied Muhammad’s 

motions to stay the executions, and we refuse to grant his application in our Court. 

Federal review of Muhammad’s Eighth Amendment claim, already decided by the 

Supreme Court of Florida, is available in the Supreme Court of the United States, in 

which his petition for a writ of certiorari is pending. 

IV. CONCLUSION

We AFFIRM the denial of the motions for a stay of execution. We DENY 

Muhammad’s application for a stay of execution. We DENY Muhammad’s request 

for oral argument. 

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