Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 19

Cite as:  576 U. S. ____ (2015) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

Hill,  the  issue  was  whether  a  challenge  to  a  method  of 
execution must be brought by means of an application for 
a writ of habeas corpus or a civil action under §1983.  Id., 
at 576.  We held that a method-of-execution claim must be 
brought under §1983 because such a claim does not attack 
the validity of the prisoner’s conviction or death sentence. 
Id.,  at  579–580.  The  United  States  as  amicus  curiae 
argued  that  we  should  adopt  a  special  pleading  require-
ment  to  stop  inmates  from  using  §1983  actions  to  attack,
not  just  a  particular  means  of  execution,  but  the  death
penalty  itself.  To  achieve  this  end,  the  United  States 
proposed  that  an  inmate  asserting  a  method-of-execution
claim  should  be  required  to  plead  an  acceptable  alterna-
tive  method  of  execution.  Id.,  at  582.    We  rejected  that 
argument  because  “[s]pecific  pleading  requirements  are 
mandated  by  the  Federal  Rules  of  Civil  Procedure,  and 
not,  as  a  general  rule,  through  case-by-case  determina-
tions  of  the  federal  courts.”  Ibid.  Hill  thus  held  that 
§1983  alone  does  not  impose  a  heightened  pleading  re-
quirement.  Baze,  on  the  other  hand,  addressed  the  sub-
stantive  elements  of  an  Eighth  Amendment  method-of-
execution  claim,  and  it  made  clear  that  the  Eighth
Amendment  requires  a  prisoner  to  plead  and  prove  a 
known  and  available  alternative.  Because  petitioners
failed to do this, the District Court properly held that they 
did  not  establish  a  likelihood  of  success  on  their  Eighth
Amendment claim. 

Readers  can  judge  for  themselves  how  much  distance
there is between the principal dissent’s argument against 
requiring  prisoners  to  identify  an  alternative  and  the 
view, now announced by JUSTICES BREYER and GINSBURG, 
that  the  death  penalty  is  categorically  unconstitutional. 
Post, p. ___ (BREYER, J., dissenting).  The principal dissent
goes  out  of  its  way  to  suggest  that  a  State  would  violate
the  Eighth  Amendment  if  it  used  one  of  the  methods  of 
execution  employed  before  the  advent  of  lethal  injection.