Opinion ID: 3065887
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: equal protection claim—disparate treatment

Text: Lopez’s equal protection claim is that Arizona treats inmates differently and that such differences result in unconstitutional disparate treatment. As we noted in Towery, the state’s decision as to how to administer the chemicals “may well depend on individualized and changing factors such as the availability of particular people to participate in the execution, the supply of drugs available to the State at a given time, and the condition of the prisoner’s veins.” Id. at 661. For the same reasons that a similar claim failed in Towery, the district court held that it fails here as well. The district court noted that at the time of our decision in Towery, the ADC had utilized either peripheral or femoral (or both) IV lines in carrying out each of the previous 26 executions by lethal injection. The district court found that the use of a femoral catheter is no more likely to create a risk of cruel and unusual punishment than the use of a peripheral catheter and held that Lopez had not raised serious questions or shown a likelihood of success on the merits of his equal protection claim. [12] Lopez points to our language in Towery to argue that an equal protection claim exists because he has shown “an actual pattern of treating prisoners differently in ways that did affect the risk of pain to which they would be subjected, and therefore the risk of being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.” 672 F.3d at 660 (discussing In re Ohio Execution Protocol Litig, ___ F. Supp. 2d ___, 2012 WL 84548, at  (S.D. Ohio Jan. 11, 2012), motion to vacate stay denied, ___ F.3d ___, 2012 WL 118322, at  (6th Cir. Jan. 13, 2012)). This statement cannot be extracted from its context. The most significant part of the discussion preceded that statement: namely that a prisoner’s right to be free of cruel and unusual 5588 LOPEZ v. BREWER punishment “is not affected simply because that prisoner is treated less favorably than another, where one means of execution is no more likely to create a risk of cruel and unusual punishment than the other, and both are constitutionally available.” Id.6 [13] Since each condemned inmate is physiologically different, no two prisoners would necessarily be similarly situated with respect to the siting of IV lines. While Lopez may be correct that the pain suffered by an inmate could depend on whether the Director elects to use a peripheral or femoral line, Lopez does not demonstrate that the Director has exercised his discretion in a manner that increases a prisoner’s risk of being subjected to an objectively intolerable risk of pain. Nor does he demonstrate that the Director has exercised his discretion in a constitutionally prohibited manner, for instance, based on a suspect or any other classification. The district court did not abuse its discretion in holding that Lopez fails to raise a serious question going to the merits on his equal protection claim.