Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/587/17-8151/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 08:38:49+00:00

Document:
Under the Supreme Court’s “Baze-Glossip” test, a state’s refusal to alter its execution protocol can violate the Eighth Amendment only if an inmate identifies a “feasible, readily implemented” alternative procedure that would “significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain.” Missouri plans to execute Bucklew by lethal injection using a single drug, pentobarbital. Bucklew presented an as-applied Eighth Amendment challenge, alleging that, regardless whether the protocol would cause excruciating pain for all prisoners, it would cause him severe pain because of his particular medical condition.
The Eighth Circuit and Supreme Court affirmed the rejection of Bucklew’s challenge. The Eighth Amendment does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death. To establish that a state’s chosen method cruelly “superadds” pain to the death sentence, a prisoner must show a feasible and readily implemented alternative method that would significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain and that the state has refused to adopt without a legitimate penological reason. Traditionally accepted methods of execution are not necessarily unconstitutional because an arguably more humane method becomes available. Precedent forecloses Bucklew’s argument that methods posing a “substantial and particular risk of grave suffering” when applied to a particular inmate due to his “unique medical condition” should be considered “categorically” cruel. Identifying an available alternative is a requirement of all Eighth Amendment method-of-execution claims alleging cruel pain. Bucklew failed to present a triable question on the viability of nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative to Missouri’s protocol; he merely pointed to reports from other states indicating the need for additional study. Missouri had a “legitimate” interest in choosing not to be the first to experiment with a new, “untried and untested” method of execution.
In Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35, a plurality of this Court concluded that a State’s refusal to alter its execution protocol could violate the Eighth Amendment only if an inmate first identified a “feasible, readily implemented” alternative procedure that would “significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain.” Id., at 52. A majority of the Court subsequently held Baze’s plurality opinion to be controlling. See Glossip v. Gross, 576 U. S. ___.
2. Mr. Bucklew has failed to satisfy the Baze-Glossip test. Pp. 20–28.
After a decade of litigation, Mr. Bucklew was seemingly out of legal options. A jury had convicted him of murder and other crimes and recommended a death sentence, which the court had imposed. His direct appeal had proved unsuccessful. State v. Bucklew, 973 S.W.2d 83 (Mo. 1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1082 (1999). Separate rounds of state and federal post-conviction proceedings also had failed to yield relief. Bucklew v. State, 38 S.W.3d 395 (Mo.), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 964 (2001); Bucklew v. Luebbers, 436 F.3d 1010 (CA8), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 1079 (2006).
As it turned out, though, Mr. Bucklew’s case soon became caught up in a wave of litigation over lethal injection procedures. Like many States, Missouri has periodically sought to improve its administration of the death penalty. Early in the 20th century, the State replaced hanging with the gas chamber. Later in the century, it authorized the use of lethal injection as an alternative to lethal gas. By the time Mr. Bucklew’s post-conviction proceedings ended, Missouri’s protocol called for lethal injections to be carried out using three drugs: sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. And by that time, too, various inmates were in the process of challenging the constitutionality of the State’s protocol and others like it around the country. See Taylor v. Crawford, 457 F.3d 902 (CA8 2006); Note, A New Test for Evaluating Eighth Amendment Challenges to Lethal Injections, 120 Harv. L. Rev. 1301, 1304 (2007) (describing flood of lethal injection lawsuits around 2006 that “severely constrained states’ ability to carry out executions”); Denno, The Lethal Injection Quandary: How Medicine Has Dismantled the Death Penalty, 76 Ford. L. Rev. 49, 102–116 (2007).
Ultimately, this Court answered these legal challenges in Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35 (2008). Addressing Kentucky’s similar three-drug protocol, The Chief Justice, joined by Justice Alito and Justice Kennedy, concluded that a State’s refusal to alter its lethal injection protocol could violate the Eighth Amendment only if an inmate first identified a “feasible, readily implemented” alternative procedure that would “significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain.” Id., at 52. Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, thought the protocol passed muster because it was not intended “to add elements of terror, pain, or disgrace to the death penalty.” Id., at 107. Justice Breyer reached the same result because he saw no evidence that the protocol created “a significant risk of unnecessary suffering.” Id., at 113. And though Justice Stevens objected to the continued use of the death penalty, he agreed that petitioners’ evidence was insufficient. Id., at 87. After this Court decided Baze, it denied review in a case seeking to challenge Missouri’s similar lethal injection protocol. Taylor v. Crawford, 487 F.3d 1072 (2007), cert. denied, 553 U.S. 1004 (2008).
But that still was not the end of it. Next, Mr. Bucklew and other inmates unsuccessfully challenged Missouri’s protocol in state court, alleging that it had been adopted in contravention of Missouri’s Administrative Procedure Act. Middleton v. Missouri Dept. of Corrections, 278 S.W.3d 193 (Mo.), cert. denied, 556 U.S. 1255 (2009). They also unsuccessfully challenged the protocol in federal court, this time alleging it was pre-empted by various federal statutes. Ringo v. Lombardi, 677 F.3d 793 (CA8 2012). And Mr. Bucklew sought to intervene in yet another lawsuit alleging that Missouri’s protocol violated the Eighth Amendment because unqualified personnel might botch its administration. That lawsuit failed too. Clemons v. Crawford, 585 F.3d 1119 (CA8 2009), cert. denied, 561 U.S. 1026 (2010).
These latest protocol challenges yielded mixed results. The district court dismissed both the inmates’ facial challenge and Mr. Bucklew’s as-applied challenge. But, at Mr. Bucklew’s request, this Court agreed to stay his execution until the Eighth Circuit could hear his appeal. Bucklew v. Lombardi, 572 U.S. 1131 (2014). Ultimately, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the facial challenge. Zink v. Lombardi, 783 F.3d 1089 (en banc) (per curiam), cert. denied, 576 U. S. ___ (2015). Then, turning to the as-applied challenge and seeking to apply the test set forth by the Baze plurality, the court held that Mr. Bucklew’s complaint failed as a matter of law to identify an alternative procedure that would significantly reduce the risks he alleged would flow from the State’s lethal injection protocol. Yet, despite this dispositive shortcoming, the court of appeals decided to give Mr. Bucklew another chance to plead his case. The court stressed that, on remand before the district court, Mr. Bucklew had to identify “at the earliest possible time” a feasible, readily implemented alternative procedure that would address those risks. Bucklew v. Lombardi, 783 F.3d 1120, 1127–1128 (2015) (en banc).
Shortly after the Eighth Circuit issued its judgment, this Court decided Glossip v. Gross, 576 U. S. ___ (2015), rejecting a challenge to Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol. There, the Court clarified that The Chief Justice’s plurality opinion in Baze was controlling under Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188 (1977). In doing so, it reaffirmed that an inmate cannot successfully challenge a method of execution under the Eighth Amendment unless he identifies “an alternative that is ‘feasible, readily implemented, and in fact significantly reduces a substantial risk of severe pain.’ ” 576 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 12–13). Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, reiterated his view that the Eighth Amendment “prohibits only those methods of execution that are deliberately designed to inflict pain,” but he joined the Court’s opinion because it correctly explained why petitioners’ claim failed even under the controlling opinion in Baze. Glossip, 576 U. S., at ___ (concurring opinion) (slip op., at 1) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).
The district court allowed Mr. Bucklew “extensive discovery” on his new proposal. 883 F.3d 1087, 1094 (CA8 2018). But even at the close of discovery in 2017, the district court still found the proposal lacking and granted the State’s motion for summary judgment. By this point in the proceedings, Mr. Bucklew’s contentions about the pain he might suffer had evolved considerably. He no longer complained about circulation of the drug, the use of dye, or adverse drug interactions. Instead, his main claim now was that he would experience pain during the period after the pentobarbital started to take effect but before it rendered him fully unconscious. According to his expert, Dr. Joel Zivot, while in this semiconscious “twilight stage” Mr. Bucklew would be unable to prevent his tumors from obstructing his breathing, which would make him feel like he was suffocating. Dr. Zivot declined to say how long this twilight stage would last. When pressed, however, he referenced a study on euthanasia in horses. He claimed that the horses in the study had displayed some amount of brain activity, as measured with an electroencephalogram (or EEG), for up to four minutes after they were given a large dose of pentobarbital. Based on Dr. Zivot’s testi- mony, the district court found a triable issue as to whether there was a “substantial risk” that Mr. Bucklew would “experience choking and an inability to breathe for up to four minutes” if he were executed by lethal injection. App. 827. Even so, the court held, Mr. Bucklew’s claim failed because he had produced no evidence that his proposed alternative, execution by nitrogen hypoxia, would significantly reduce that risk.
This time, a panel of the Eighth Circuit affirmed. The panel held that Mr. Bucklew had produced no evidence that the risk of pain he alleged “would be substantially reduced by use of nitrogen hypoxia instead of lethal injection as the method of execution.” 883 F. 3d, at 1096. Judge Colloton dissented, arguing that the evidence raised a triable issue as to whether nitrogen gas would “render Bucklew insensate more quickly than pentobarbital.” Id., at 1099. The full court denied rehearing en banc over a dissent by Judge Kelly, who maintained that, while prisoners pursuing facial challenges to a state execution protocol must plead and prove an alternative method of execution under Baze and Glossip, prisoners like Mr. Bucklew who pursue as-applied challenges should not have to bear that burden. 885 F.3d 527, 528 (2018).
The Constitution allows capital punishment. See Glossip, 576 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 2–4); Baze, 553 U. S., at 47. In fact, death was “the standard penalty for all serious crimes” at the time of the founding. S. Banner, The Death Penalty: An American History 23 (2002) (Banner). Nor did the later addition of the Eighth Amendment outlaw the practice. On the contrary—the Fifth Amendment, added to the Constitution at the same time as the Eighth, expressly contemplates that a defendant may be tried for a “capital” crime and “deprived of life” as a pen- alty, so long as proper procedures are followed. And the First Congress, which proposed both Amendments, made a number of crimes punishable by death. See Act of Apr. 30, 1790, 1Stat. 112. Of course, that doesn’t mean the American people must continue to use the death penalty. The same Constitution that permits States to authorize capital punishment also allows them to outlaw it. But it does mean that the judiciary bears no license to end a debate reserved for the people and their representatives.
Consistent with the Constitution’s original understanding, this Court in Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130 (1879), permitted an execution by firing squad while observing that the Eighth Amendment forbade the gruesome methods of execution described by Blackstone “and all others in the same line of unnecessary cruelty.” Id., at 135–136. A few years later, the Court upheld a sentence of death by electrocution while observing that, though electrocution was a new mode of punishment and therefore perhaps could be considered “unusual,” it was not “cruel” in the constitutional sense: “[T]he punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution. [Cruelty] implies . . . something inhuman and barbarous, something more than the mere extinguishment of life.” In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 447 (1890).
As we’ve seen, two Members of the Court whose votes were essential to the judgment in Glossip argued that establishing cruelty consistent with the Eighth Amendment’s original meaning demands slightly more than the majority opinion there (or the Baze plurality opinion it followed) suggested. Instead of requiring an inmate to establish that a State has unreasonably refused to alter its method of execution to avoid a risk of unnecessary pain, Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia contended that an inmate must show that the State intended its method to inflict such pain. See Glossip, 576 U. S., at ___ (Thomas, J., concurring) (slip op., at 1); Baze, 553 U. S., at 94–107 (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment). But revisiting that debate isn’t necessary here because, as we’ll see, the State was entitled to summary judgment in this case even under the more forgiving Baze-Glossip test. See Part III, infra.
What does the principal dissent have to say about all this? It acknowledges that Glossip’s comparative requirement helps prevent facial method-of-execution claims from becoming a “backdoor means to abolish” the death penalty. Post, at 8 (opinion of Breyer, J.). But, the dissent assures us, there’s no reason to worry that as-applied method-of-execution challenges might be used that way. This assurance misses the point. As we’ve explained, the alternative-method requirement is compelled by our understanding of the Constitution, not by mere policy concerns.
With that, the dissent is left only to rehash the same argument that Mr. Bucklew offers. The dissent insists that some forms of execution are just categorically cruel. Post, at 10–11. At first and like others who have made this argument, the dissent offers little more than intuition to support its conclusion. Ultimately, though, even it bows to the necessity of something firmer. If a “comparator is needed” to assess whether an execution is cruel, the dissent tells us, we should compare the pain likely to follow from the use of a lethal injection in this case with the pain-free use of lethal injections in mine-run cases. Post, at 10. But that’s just another way of saying executions must always be carried out painlessly because they can be carried out painlessly most of the time, a standard the Constitution has never required and this Court has re- jected time and time again. Supra, at 12. To determine whether the State is cruelly superadding pain, our precedents and history require asking whether the State had some other feasible and readily available method to carry out its lawful sentence that would have significantly reduced a substantial risk of pain.
Take this one. A facial challenge is really just a claim that the law or policy at issue is unconstitutional in all its applications. So classifying a lawsuit as facial or as-applied affects the extent to which the invalidity of the challenged law must be demonstrated and the corresponding “breadth of the remedy,” but it does not speak at all to the substantive rule of law necessary to establish a constitutional violation. Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U.S. 310, 331 (2010). Surely it would be strange for the same words of the Constitution to bear entirely different meanings depending only on how broad a remedy the plaintiff chooses to seek. See Gross v. United States, 771 F.3d 10, 14–15 (CADC 2014) (“ ‘[T]he substantive rule of law is the same for both [facial and as-applied] challenges’ ”); Brooklyn Legal Servs. Corp. v. Legal Servs. Corp., 462 F.3d 219, 228 (CA2 2006) (the facial/as-applied distinction affects “the extent to which the invalidity of a statute need be demonstrated,” not “the substantive rule of law to be used”). And surely, too, it must count for something that we have found not a single court decision in over 200 years suggesting that the Eighth Amendment’s meaning shifts in this way. To the contrary, our precedent suggests just the opposite. In the related context of an Eighth Amendment challenge to conditions of confinement, we have seen “no basis whatever” for applying a different legal standard to “deprivations inflicted upon all prisoners” and those “inflicted upon particular prisoners.” Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 299, n. 1 (1991).
Here’s yet another problem with Mr. Bucklew’s argument: It invites pleading games. The line between facial and as-applied challenges can sometimes prove “amorphous,” Elgin v. Department of Treasury, 567 U.S. 1, 15 (2012), and “not so well defined,” Citizens United, 558 U. S., at 331. Consider an example. Suppose an inmate claims that the State’s lethal injection protocol violates the Eighth Amendment when used to execute anyone with a very common but not quite universal health condition. Should such a claim be regarded as facial or as-applied? In another context, we sidestepped a debate over how to categorize a comparable claim—one that neither sought “to strike [the challenged law] in all its applications” nor was “limited to plaintiff’s particular case”—by concluding that “[t]he label is not what matters.” Doe v. Reed, 561 U.S. 186, 194 (2010). To hold now, for the first time, that choosing a label changes the meaning of the Constitution would only guarantee a good deal of litigation over labels, with lawyers on each side seeking to classify cases to maximize their tactical advantage. Unless increasing the delay and cost involved in carrying out executions is the point of the exercise, it’s hard to see the benefit in placing so much weight on what can be an abstruse exercise.
Finally, the burden Mr. Bucklew must shoulder under the Baze-Glossip test can be overstated. An inmate seeking to identify an alternative method of execution is not limited to choosing among those presently authorized by a particular State’s law. Missouri itself seemed to acknowledge as much at oral argument. Tr. of Oral Arg. 65. So, for example, a prisoner may point to a well-established protocol in another State as a potentially viable option. Of course, in a case like that a court would have to inquire into the possibility that one State possessed a legitimate reason for declining to adopt the protocol of another. See supra, at 13–14. And existing state law might be relevant to determining the proper procedural vehicle for the inmate’s claim. See Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573, 582–583 (2006) (if the relief sought in a 42 U. S. C. §1983 action would “foreclose the State from implementing the [inmate’s] sentence under present law,” then “recharacterizing a complaint as an action for habeas corpus might be proper”). But the Eighth Amendment is the supreme law of the land, and the comparative assessment it requires can’t be controlled by the State’s choice of which methods to authorize in its statutes. In light of this, we see little likelihood that an inmate facing a serious risk of pain will be unable to identify an available alternative—assuming, of course, that the inmate is more interested in avoiding unnecessary pain than in delaying his execution.
Having (re)confirmed that anyone bringing a method of execution claim alleging the infliction of unconstitution- ally cruel pain must meet the Baze-Glossip test, we can now turn to the question whether Mr. Bucklew is able to sat- isfy that test. Has he identified a feasible and readily im- plemented alternative method of execution the State refused to adopt without a legitimate reason, even though it would significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain? Because the case comes to us after the entry of summary judgment, this appeal turns on whether Mr. Bucklew has shown a genuine issue of material fact warranting a trial.
We begin with the question of a proposed alternative method. Through much of this case and despite many opportunities, Mr. Bucklew refused to identify any alternative method of execution, choosing instead to stand on his argument that Baze and Glossip’s legal standard doesn’t govern as-applied challenges like his (even after the Eighth Circuit rejected that argument). Only when the district court warned that his continued refusal to abide this Court’s precedents would result in immediate dismissal did Mr. Bucklew finally point to nitrogen hy- poxia. The district court then afforded Mr. Bucklew “exten- sive discovery” to explore the viability of that alternative. 883 F. 3d, at 1094. But even after all that, we conclude Mr. Bucklew has failed for two independent reasons to present a triable question on the viability of nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative to the State’s lethal injection protocol.
First, an inmate must show that his proposed alternative method is not just theoretically “ ‘feasible’ ” but also “ ‘readily implemented.’ ” Glossip, 576 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 12–13). This means the inmate’s proposal must be sufficiently detailed to permit a finding that the State could carry it out “relatively easily and reasonably quickly.” McGehee v. Hutchinson, 854 F.3d 488, 493 (CA8 2017); Arthur v. Commissioner, Ala. Dept. of Corrections, 840 F.3d 1268, 1300 (CA11 2016). Mr. Bucklew’s bare-bones proposal falls well short of that standard. He has presented no evidence on essential questions like how nitrogen gas should be administered (using a gas chamber, a tent, a hood, a mask, or some other delivery device); in what concentration (pure nitrogen or some mixture of gases); how quickly and for how long it should be introduced; or how the State might ensure the safety of the execution team, including protecting them against the risk of gas leaks. Instead of presenting the State with a read- ily implemented alternative method, Mr. Bucklew (and the principal dissent) point to reports from correctional authorities in other States indicating that additional study is needed to develop a protocol for execution by nitrogen hypoxia. See App. 697 (Oklahoma grand jury report recommending that the State “retain experts” and conduct “further research” to “determine how to carry out the sentence of death by this method”); id., at 736 (report of Louisiana Dept. of Public Safety & Corrections stating that “[r]esearch . . . is ongoing” to develop a nitrogen hypoxia protocol). That is a proposal for more research, not the readily implemented alternative that Baze and Glossip require.
Second, and relatedly, the State had a “legitimate” reason for declining to switch from its current method of execution as a matter of law. Baze, 553 U. S., at 52. Rather than point to a proven alternative method, Mr. Bucklew sought the adoption of an entirely new method—one that had “never been used to carry out an execution” and had “no track record of successful use.” McGehee, 854 F. 3d, at 493. But choosing not to be the first to experiment with a new method of execution is a legitimate reason to reject it. In Baze we observed that “no other State ha[d] adopted” the one-drug protocol the inmates sought and they had “proffered no study showing” their one-drug protocol would be as effective and humane as the State’s existing three-drug protocol. 553 U. S., at 57. Under those circumstances, we held as a matter of law that Kentucky’s refusal to adopt the inmates’ proffered protocol could not “constitute a violation of the Eighth Amendment.” Ibid. The Eighth Amendment prohibits States from dredging up archaic cruel punishments or perhaps inventing new ones, but it does not compel a State to adopt “untried and untested” (and thus unusual in the constitutional sense) methods of execution. Id., at 41.
First, Mr. Bucklew points to several risks that he alleges could result from use of the State’s lethal injection protocol that would not be present if the State used nitrogen gas. For example, he says the execution team might try to insert an IV into one of his peripheral veins, which could cause the vein to rupture; or the team might instead use an allegedly painful “cut-down” procedure to access his femoral vein. He also says that he might be forced to lie flat on his back during the execution, which could impair his breathing even before the pentobarbital is administered. And he says the stress from all this could cause his tumors to bleed, further impairing his breathing. These risks, we may assume, would not exist if Mr. Bucklew were exe- cuted by his preferred method of nitrogen hypoxia.
The problem with all of these contentions is that they rest on speculation unsupported, if not affirmatively contradicted, by the evidence in this case. Nor does the principal dissent contend otherwise. So, for example, uncontroverted record evidence indicates that the execution team will have discretion to adjust the gurney to whatever position is in Mr. Bucklew’s best medical interests. 883 F. 3d, at 1092, n. 3; App. 531. Moreover, the State agreed in the district court that it would not try to place an IV in Mr. Bucklew’s compromised peripheral veins. Id., at 820; see Brief for Appellant in No. 17–3052 (CA8), p. 7. And, assuming without granting that using a cut-down would raise issues under the Eighth Amendment—but see Nooner v. Norris, 594 F.3d 592, 604 (CA8 2010) (holding otherwise)—the State’s expert, Dr. Michael Antognini, testified without contradiction that it should be possible to place an IV in Mr. Bucklew’s femoral vein without using a cut-down procedure, App. 350. Mr. Bucklew responds by pointing to the warden’s testimony that he once saw medical staff perform a cut-down as part of an execution; but there’s no evidence that what the warden saw was an attempt to access a femoral vein, as opposed to some other vein.
Moreover, to the extent the record is unclear on any of these issues, Mr. Bucklew had ample opportunity to conduct discovery and develop a factual record concerning exactly what procedures the State planned to use. He failed to do so—presumably because the thrust of his constitutional claim was that any attempt to execute him via lethal injection would be unconstitutional, regardless of the specific procedures the State might use. As the court of appeals explained: “Having taken the position that any lethal injection procedure would violate the Eighth Amendment,” Mr. Bucklew “made no effort to determine what changes, if any, the [State] would make in applying its lethal injection protocol” to him, and he “never urged the district court to establish a suitable fact-finding procedure . . . to define the as-applied lethal injection protocol [the State] intends to use.” 883 F. 3d, at 1095–1096.
In fact, there’s nothing in the record to suggest that Mr. Bucklew will be capable of experiencing pain for significantly more than 20 to 30 seconds after being injected with pentobarbital. For one thing, Mr. Bucklew’s lawyer now admits that Dr. Zivot “crossed up the numbers” from the horse study. Tr. of Oral Arg. 7–8, 11–12. The study actually reported that the horses displayed isoelectric EEG between 2 and 52 seconds after infusion of pentobarbital was completed, with an average time of less than 24 seconds. App. 267. So if anything, the horse study appears to bolster Dr. Antognini’s time estimate. For another thing, everyone now also seems to acknowledge that isoelectric EEG is the wrong measure. Dr. Zivot never claimed the horses were capable of experiencing pain until they reached isoelectric EEG. And Mr. Bucklew’s lawyer now concedes that doctors perform major surgery on human patients with measurable EEG readings, which strongly suggests that Mr. Bucklew will be insensible to pain before reaching isoelectric EEG. Tr. of Oral Arg. 9. Finally, the record evidence even allows the possibility that nitrogen could increase the risk of pain. Because Dr. Zivot declined to testify about the likely effects of nitrogen gas, Mr. Bucklew must rely on Dr. Antognini’s testimony. And while Dr. Antognini did say he thought nitrogen’s “onset of action” could be “relatively fast,” App. 458, he added that the effects of nitrogen could vary depending on exactly how it would be administered—information Mr. Bucklew hadn’t provided. Indeed, he stated that “depending on . . . how it’s used, you might get more suffering from nitrogen gas than you would have” from the State’s current protocol. Id., at 460–461.
Of course, the principal dissent maintains that Dr. Zivot’s testimony supports an inference that pentobarbital might cause Mr. Bucklew to suffer for a prolonged period. But its argument rests on a number of mistakes about the record. For example, the dissent points to Dr. Zivot’s remark that, with pentobarbital, “ ‘the period of time between receiving the injection and death could range over a few minutes to many minutes.’ ” Post, at 4, 6 (quoting App. 222). From this, the dissent concludes that Mr. Bucklew may suffer for “up to several minutes.” Post, at 1, 6, 9. But everyone agrees that the relevant question isn’t how long it will take for Mr. Bucklew to die, but how long he will be capable of feeling pain. Seeking to address the problem, the dissent next points to another part of Dr. Zivot’s testimony and says it means Mr. Bucklew could experience pain during the entire time between injection and death. Post, at 6, 13 (quoting App. 222). But the dissent clips the relevant quotation. As the full quotation makes clear, Dr. Zivot claimed that Mr. Bucklew might be unable to “maintain the integrity of his airway” until he died—but he carefully avoided claiming that Mr. Bucklew would be capable of feeling pain until he died. To avoid this problem, the dissent quotes Dr. Zivot’s assertions that pentobarbital might not produce “ ‘rapid unconsciousness’ ” and that Mr. Bucklew’s suffering with pentobarbital could be “ ‘prolonged.’ ” Post, at 4–6, 13 (quoting App. 233–234). But Dr. Zivot’s statements here, too, fail to specify how long Mr. Bucklew is likely to be able to feel pain. The hard fact is that, when Dr. Zivot was finally compelled to offer a view on this question, his only response was to refer to the horse study. Id., at 195–196. The dissent’s effort to suggest that Dr. Zivot “did not rely exclusively or even heavily on that study,” post, at 7, is belied by (among other things) Mr. Bucklew’s own brief in this Court, which asserted that the twilight stage during which he might feel pain could last “between 52 and 240 seconds,” based entirely on a citation of Dr. Zivot’s incorrect testimony about the horse study. Brief for Petitioner 13.
In sum, even if execution by nitrogen hypoxia were a feasible and readily implemented alternative to the State’s chosen method, Mr. Bucklew has still failed to present any evidence suggesting that it would significantly reduce his risk of pain. For that reason as well, the State was entitled to summary judgment on Mr. Bucklew’s Eighth Amendment claim.
The people of Missouri, the surviving victims of Mr. Bucklew’s crimes, and others like them deserve better. Even the principal dissent acknowledges that “the long delays that now typically occur between the time an offender is sentenced to death and his execution” are “excessive.” Post, at 16. The answer is not, as the dissent incongruously suggests, to reward those who interpose delay with a decree ending capital punishment by judicial fiat. Post, at 18. Under our Constitution, the question of capital punishment belongs to the people and their representatives, not the courts, to resolve. The proper role of courts is to ensure that method-of-execution challenges to law- fully issued sentences are resolved fairly and expeditiously. Courts should police carefully against attempts to use such challenges as tools to interpose unjustified delay. Last-minute stays should be the extreme exception, not the norm, and “the last-minute nature of an application” that “could have been brought” earlier, or “an applicant’s attempt at manipulation,” “may be grounds for denial of a stay.” Hill, 547 U. S., at 584 (internal quotation marks omitted). So, for example, we have vacated a stay entered by a lower court as an abuse of discretion where the inmate waited to bring an available claim until just 10 days before his scheduled execution for a murder he had committed 24 years earlier. See Dunn v. Ray, 586 U. S. ___ (2019). If litigation is allowed to proceed, federal courts “can and should” protect settled state judgments from “undue interference” by invoking their “equitable powers” to dismiss or curtail suits that are pursued in a “dilatory” fashion or based on “speculative” theories. Id., at 584–585.
1 While this case has been pending, a few States have authorized nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution. See 2018 Ala. Acts no. 2018–353 (allowing condemned inmates to elect execution by nitrogen hypoxia); 2017 Miss. Laws ch. 406, p. 905 (authorizing execution by nitrogen hypoxia only if lethal injection is held unconstitutional or is otherwise unavailable); 2015 Okla. Sess. Laws ch. 75, p. 244 (same). In March 2018, officials in Oklahoma announced that, due to the unavailability of lethal injection drugs, the State would use nitrogen gas for its executions going forward. See Williams, Oklahoma Proposes To Use Nitrogen Gas for Executions by Asphyxiation, N. Y. Times, Mar. 15, 2018, p. A22. But Oklahoma has so far been unable to find a manufacturer willing to sell it a gas delivery device for use in executions. See Clay, State Not Ready for Executions, The Oklahoman, Jan. 27, 2019, p. A1. To date, no one in this case has pointed us to an execution in this country using nitrogen gas.
2 While the district court allowed discovery on many other matters, Mr. Bucklew protests that it did not permit him to learn the identities of the lethal injection execution team members, to depose them, or to inquire into their qualifications, training, and experience. Like the Eighth Circuit, we see no abuse of discretion in the district court’s discovery rulings. As the district court explained, Mr. Bucklew argues that there is no way he may be constitutionally executed by lethal injection, even with modifications to the State’s lethal injection protocol. And in a case like that, discovery into such granular matters as who administers the protocol simply is not relevant.
3 Here’s the full quotation, with the portion quoted by the dissent underlined: “As a result of his inability to maintain the integrity of his airway for the period of time beginning with the injection of the Pentobarbital solution and ending with Mr. Bucklew’s death several minutes to as long as many minutes later, Mr. Bucklew would be highly likely to experience feelings of ‘air hunger’ and the excruciating pain of prolonged suffocation resulting from the complete obstruction of his airway by the large vascular tumor.” App. 222.
4 The State contends that Mr. Bucklew’s claim should fail for yet another reason: because, in the State’s view, the evidence does not show that he is very likely to suffer “ ‘severe pain’ ” cognizable under the Eighth Amendment. Glossip v. Gross, 576 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 13) (quoting Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35, 52 (2008); emphasis added). We have no need, however, to address that argument because (as explained above) Mr. Bucklew fails even to show that a feasible and readily available alternative could significantly reduce the pain he alleges.
5 Seeking to relitigate Dunn v. Ray, the principal dissent asserts that that case involved no undue delay because the inmate “brought his claim only five days after he was notified” that the State would not allow his spiritual adviser to be present with him in the execution chamber itself, although it would allow the adviser to be present on the other side of a glass partition. Post, at 17. But a state statute listed “[t]he spiritual adviser of the condemned” as one of numerous individ-uals who would be allowed to “be present at an execution,” many of whom—such as “newspaper reporters,” “relatives or friends of the condemned person,” and “the victim’s immediate family members”—obviously would not be allowed into the chamber itself. Ala. Code §15–18–83 (2018). The inmate thus had long been on notice that there was a question whether his adviser would be allowed into the chamber or required to remain on the other side of the glass. Yet although he had been on death row since 1999, and the State had set a date for his execution on November 6, 2018, he waited until January 23, 2019—just 15 days before the execution—to ask for clarification. He then brought a claim 10 days before the execution and sought an indefinite stay. This delay implicated the “strong equitable presumption” that no stay should be granted “where a claim could have been brought at such a time as to allow consideration of the merits without requiring entry of a stay.” Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573, 584 (2006).
When an inmate raises an as-applied constitutional challenge to a particular method of execution—that is, a challenge to a method of execution that is constitutional in general but that the inmate says is very likely to cause him severe pain—one question is whether the inmate must identify an available alternative method of execution that would significantly reduce the risk of severe pain. Applying our recent decisions in Glossip v. Gross, 576 U. S. ___ (2015), and Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35 (2008) (plurality opinion), the Court’s answer to that question is yes. Under those precedents, I agree with the Court’s holding and join the Court’s opinion.
In other words, an inmate who contends that a particular method of execution is very likely to cause him severe pain should ordinarily be able to plead some alternative method of execution that would significantly reduce the risk of severe pain. At oral argument in this Court, the State suggested that the firing squad would be such an available alternative, if adequately pleaded. Tr. of Oral Arg. 63–64 (“He can plead firing squad. . . . Of course, if he had . . . pleaded firing squad, it’s possible that Missouri could have executed him by firing squad”). Justice Sotomayor has likewise explained that the firing squad is an alternative method of execution that generally causes an immediate and certain death, with close to zero risk of a botched execution. See Arthur, 580 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 17–18). I do not here prejudge the question whether the firing squad, or any other alternative method of execution, would be a feasible and readily implemented alternative for every State. See McGehee v. Hutchinson, 854 F.3d 488, 493–494 (CA8 2017). Rather, I simply emphasize the Court’s statement that “we see little likelihood that an inmate facing a serious risk of pain will be unable to identify an available alternative.” Ante, at 20.
I adhere to my view that “a method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment only if it is deliberately designed to inflict pain.” Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35, 94 (2008) (opinion concurring in judgment); ante, at 14. Because there is no evidence that Missouri designed its protocol to inflict pain on anyone, let alone Russell Bucklew, I would end the inquiry there. Nonetheless, I join the Court’s opinion in full because it correctly explains why Bucklew’s claim fails even under the Court’s precedents.
Contrary to Justice Breyer’s suggestion, my view does not render the Eighth Amendment “a static prohibition” proscribing only “the same things that it proscribed in the 18th century.” Post, at 15–16. A method of execution not specifically contemplated at the founding could today be imposed to “superad[d]” “terror, pain, or disgrace.” 4 Blackstone *376. Thankfully—and consistent with Justice Story’s view that the Eighth Amendment is “wholly unnecessary in a free government,” 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 750 (1833)—States do not attempt to devise such diabolical punishments. E.g., Baze, supra, at 107 (“Kentucky adopted its lethal injection protocol in an effort to make capital punishment more humane”). It is therefore unsurprising that, despite Justice Breyer’s qualms about the death pen- alty, e.g., post, at 18, this Court has never held a method of execution unconstitutional. Because the Court correctly declines to do so again today, I join in full.
I begin with a factual question: whether Bucklew has established that, because of his rare medical condition, the State’s current method of execution risks subjecting him to excessive suffering. See Glossip v. Gross, 576 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 13) (requiring “a demonstrated risk of severe pain”); see also Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35, 50 (2008) (plurality opinion) (requiring “a substantial risk of serious harm” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
There is no dispute as to the applicable summary judgment standard. Because the State moved for summary judgment, it can prevail if, but only if, it “shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(a); see also Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). On review, we examine the record as a whole, which includes “depositions, documents, [and] affidavits or declarations.” Rule 56(c). And we must construe the evidence in the light most favorable to Bucklew and draw every justifiable inference in his favor. See Tolan v. Cotton, 572 U.S. 650, 651 (2014) (per curiam).
The District Court was right. The evidence, taken in the light most favorable to Bucklew, creates a genuine factual issue as to whether Missouri’s lethal injection protocol would subject him to several minutes of “severe pain and suffering,” Glossip, 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 13), during which he would choke and suffocate on his own blood. In my view, executing Bucklew by forcing him to choke on his grossly enlarged uvula and suffocate on his blood would exceed “the limits of civilized standards.” Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407, 435 (2008) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 100–101 (1958) (plurality opinion). The experts dispute whether Bucklew’s execution will prove as unusually painful as he claims, but resolution of that dispute is a matter for trial.
Whether any mistake about the importance of a single study makes all the difference to Bucklew’s case is a matter not for this Court to decide at summary judgment, but for the factfinder to resolve at trial. As Judge Colloton pointed out in dissent below, attacks on the “reliability and credibility of Dr. Zivot’s opinion,” including “his possible misreading of the horse study on which he partially relied,” give rise to factual disputes. See 883 F.3d 1087, 1099 (CA8 2018). Judge Colloton therefore concluded that “[t]he district court did not err in concluding that it could not resolve the dispute between the experts on summary judgment.” Ibid. I agree.
I joined the dissent in Glossip, but for present purposes I accept the Glossip majority opinion as governing. I nonetheless do not believe its “alternative method” requirement applies in this case. We “often read general language in judicial opinion[s] as referring in context to circumstances similar to the circumstances then before the Court and not referring to quite different circumstances that the Court was not then considering.” Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419, 424 (2004). And while I acknowledge that the Court in Glossip spoke in unqualified terms, the circumstances in Glossip were indeed “different” in relevant respects from the circumstances presented here.
Second, precedent counsels against extending Glossip. Neither this Court’s oldest method-of-execution case, Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130 (1879), nor any subsequent decision of this Court until Glossip, held that prisoners who challenge a State’s method of execution must identify an alternative means by which the State may execute them. To the contrary, in Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573 (2006), the Court squarely and unanimously rejected the argument that a prisoner must “identif[y] an alternative, authorized method of execution.” Id., at 582. The Court noted that any such requirement would “change the traditional pleading requirements for §1983 actions,” which we were not at liberty to do. Ibid. It is thus difficult to see how the “alternative-method” requirement could be “compelled by our understanding of the Constitution,” ante, at 17, even though the Constitution itself never hints at such a requirement, even though we did not apply such a requirement in more than a century of method-of-execution cases, and even though we unanimously rejected such a requirement in Hill. And while the Court in Glossip did not understand itself to be bound by Hill, see Glossip, 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 15) (distinguishing Hill on the theory that Hill merely rejected a heightened pleading requirement for §1983 suits), the two decisions remain in considerable tension. Confining Glossip’s “alternative method” requirement to facial challenges would help to reconcile them.
For another thing, we have repeatedly held that the Eighth Amendment is not a static prohibition that proscribes the same things that it proscribed in the 18th century. Rather, it forbids punishments that would be considered cruel and unusual today. The Amendment prohibits “unnecessary suffering” in the infliction of punishment, which this Court has understood to prohibit punishments that are “grossly disproportionate to the severity of the crime” as well as punishments that do not serve any “penological purpose.” Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 103, and n. 7 (1976). The Constitution prohibits gruesome punishments even though they may have been common at the time of the founding. Few would dispute, for example, the unconstitutionality of “a new law providing public lashing, or branding of the right hand, as punishment . . . [e]ven if it could be demonstrated unequivocally that these were not cruel and unusual measures in 1791.” Scalia, Originalism: The Lesser Evil, 57 U. Cin. L. Rev. 849, 861 (1989). The question is not, as Justice Thomas maintains, whether a punishment is deliberately inflicted to cause unnecessary pain, but rather whether we would today consider the punishment to cause excessive suffering.
As I have maintained ever since the Court started down this wayward path in Glossip v. Gross, 576 U. S. ___ (2015), there is no sound basis in the Constitution for requiring condemned inmates to identify an available means for their own executions. Justice Breyer ably explains why today’s extension of Glossip’s alternative-method requirement is misguided (even on that precedent’s own terms), and why (with or without that requirement) a trial is needed to determine whether Missouri’s planned means of executing Russell Bucklew creates an intolerable risk of suffering in light of his rare medical condition. I join Justice Breyer’s dissent, except for Part IV. I write separately to address the troubling dicta with which the Court concludes its opinion.
Courts’ equitable discretion in handling stay requests is governed by well-established principles. See Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009). Courts examine the stay applicant’s likelihood of success on the merits, whether the applicant will suffer irreparable injury without a stay, whether other parties will suffer substantial injury from a stay, and public interest considerations. Ibid.
It is equally well established that “[d]eath is a punish-ment different from all other sanctions in kind rather than degree.” Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 303–304 (1976). For that reason, the equities in a death penalty case will almost always favor the prisoner so long as he or she can show a reasonable probability of success on the merits. See Nken, 556 U. S., at 434 (noting that success on the merits and irreparable injury “are the most critical” factors); cf. Glossip, 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 11) (observing, in a preliminary-injunction posture, that “[t]he parties agree that this case turns on whether petitioners are able to establish a likelihood of success on the merits” and analyzing the case accordingly); accord, id., at ___ (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 22). This accords with each court’s “ ‘duty to search for constitutional error with painstaking care’ ” in capital cases. Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 422 (1995).
It is of course true that a court may deny relief when a party has “unnecessarily” delayed seeking it, Nelson v. Campbell, 541 U.S. 637, 649–650 (2004), and that courts should not grant equitable relief on clearly “ ‘dilatory,’ ” “ ‘speculative,’ ” or meritless grounds, ante, at 31 (quoting Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573, 584–585 (2006)); see also Gomez v. United States Dist. Court for Northern Dist. of Cal., 503 U.S. 653, 654 (1992) (per curiam) (vacating a stay where an inmate’s unjustified 10-year delay in bringing a claim was an “obvious attempt at manipulation”). That is hardly the same thing as treating late-arising claims as presumptively suspect.
The principles of federalism and finality that the major- ity invokes are already amply served by other constraints on our review of state judgments—most notably the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, but also statutes of limitations and other standard filters for dilatory claims. We should not impose further constraints on judicial discretion in this area based on little more than our own policy impulses. Finality and federalism need no extra thumb on the scale from this Court, least of all with a human life at stake.
The only sound approach is for courts to continue to afford each request for equitable relief a careful hearing on its own merits. That responsibility is never graver than when the litigation concerns an impending execution. See, e.g., Kyles, 514 U. S., at 422; Woodson, 428 U. S., at 303–304. Meritorious claims can and do come to light even at the eleventh hour, and the cost of cursory review in such cases would be unacceptably high. See Glossip, 576 U. S., at ___–___ (Breyer, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 21–22) (collecting examples of inmates who came “within hours or days of execution before later being exonerated”). A delay, moreover, may be entirely beyond a prisoner’s control. Execution methods, for example, have been moving targets subject to considerable secrecy in recent years, which means that constitutional concerns may surface only once a State settles on a procedure and communicates its choice to the prisoner. In other contexts, too, fortuity or the imminence of an execution may shake loose constitutionally significant information when time is short.
1 A skewed view of the facts caused the majority to misapply these principles and misuse its “equitable powers,” see ante, at 30, and n. 5, in vacating the Court of Appeals’ unanimous stay in Dunn v. Ray, 586 U. S. ___ (2019). Even today’s belated explanation from the majority rests on the mistaken premise that Domineque Ray could have figured out sooner that Alabama planned to deny his imam access to the execution chamber. But see id., at ___ (Kagan, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 3) (noting that the governing statute authorized both the inmate’s imam and the prison’s Christian chaplain to attend the execution, and that “the prison refused to give Ray a copy of its own practices and procedures” that would have clarified the two clergymen’s degrees of access); Ray v. Commissioner, Ala. Dept. of Corrections, 915 F.3d 689, 701–703 (CA11 2019).
2 See Zagorski v. Parker, 586 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2018) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting from denial of application for stay and denial of certio-rari) (slip op., at 2–3) (describing Tennessee’s recent equivocation about the availability of its preferred lethal injection protocol); Glossip, 576 U. S., at ___ (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 29) (noting States’ “scramble” to formulate “new and untested” execution methods); Sepulvado v. Jindal, 739 F.3d 716, 717–718 (CA5 2013) (Dennis, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc) (describing Louisiana’s refusal to inform a prisoner of the drugs that would be used to execute him); Denno, Lethal Injection Chaos Post-Baze, 102 Geo. L. J. 1331, 1376–1380 (2014) (describing increased secrecy around execution procedures).
3 See Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 55–56, and n. 1 (2011) (intentionally suppressed exculpatory crime lab report discovered a month before a scheduled execution); Ex parte Braziel, No. WR–72,186–01 (Tex. Crim. App., Dec. 11, 2018), pp. 1–2 (Alcala, J., dissenting) (disclosure by the State of “new information about possible prosecutorial misconduct” the same day as an execution).
March 15, 2018 Application (17A911) for a stay of execution of sentence of death, submitted to Justice Gorsuch.
March 16, 2018 Brief of respondents Anne Precythe, et al. in opposition filed.
March 19, 2018 Reply of petitioner Russell Bucklew filed.
March 20, 2018 Application (17A911) referred to the Court.
March 20, 2018 Application (17A911) granted by the Court. The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Gorsuch and by him referred to the Court is granted pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court. The Chief Justice, Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, and Justice Gorsuch would deny the application for stay of execution.
March 22, 2018 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 4/13/2018.
April 30, 2018 Motion to proceed in forma pauperis and petition for a writ of certiorari GRANTED. In addition to the questions presented in the petition, the parties are directed to brief and argue the following Question: Whether petitioner met his burden under Glossip v. Gross, 576 U. S. ____ (2015), to prove what procedures would be used to administer his proposed alternative method of execution, the severity and duration of pain likely to be produced, and how they compare to the State's method of execution.
May 8, 2018 Motion for an extension of time filed.
May 16, 2018 Motion to extend the time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits granted and the time is extended to and including July 16, 2018.
July 6, 2018 Blanket Consent filed by Respondent, Anne Precythe, et al.
July 16, 2018 Brief of petitioner Russell Bucklew filed.
July 16, 2018 Petitioner's Unopposed Motion to File Joint Appendix -- Volume III Under Seal of Russell Bucklew submitted.
July 20, 2018 Brief amici curiae of The American Civil Liberties Union, et al. filed.
July 23, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of American Medical Association in support of neither party filed.
July 23, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of Megan McCracken and Jennifer Moreno filed.
July 23, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of Pharmacy, Medicine, and Health Policy Experts filed.
July 23, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of Association for Accessible Medicines in support of neither party filed.
July 23, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of Former Judges and Prosecutors filed.
July 23, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Scholars and Academics of Constitutional Law filed.
July 23, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Former Corrections Officials filed.
August 15, 2018 Brief of Anne Precythe, et al. submitted.
August 15, 2018 Motion to file Volume III of the joint appendix under seal with redacted copy of transcript for public record filed by petitioner Russell Bucklew.
August 15, 2018 Brief of respondent Anne Precythe, et al. filed.
August 22, 2018 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 9/24/2018.
August 22, 2018 Amicus brief of States of Texas, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming submitted.
August 22, 2018 Amicus brief of Arizona Voice for Crime Victims, Inc., and Melissa Sanders submitted.

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