Opinion ID: 4181681
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Eighth Amendment Baze/Glossip Claim

Text: I would affirm the district court’s judgment that Plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their Eighth Amendment Baze/Glossip claim, which the district court supported with factual findings that, first, Plaintiffs established that Ohio’s midazolam three-drug protocol creates a substantial risk of severe pain and, second, Plaintiffs presented an available alternative method.
Under Glossip, to establish that a method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment, prisoners must first “establish that the method presents a risk that is ‘sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering, and give rise to sufficiently imminent dangers.’ To prevail on such a claim, ‘there must be a substantial risk of serious harm[.]’” Glossip, 135 S. Ct. at 2737 (quoting Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35, 50 (2008) (plurality opinion)) (emphasis in original). No. 17-3076 In re Ohio Execution Protocol Litig. Page 23 The majority is certainly correct that plaintiffs must meet a “heavy burden” to make the “rigorous showing” that a method of execution creates a substantial risk of serious harm. Maj. Op. at 6 (quoting Baze, 553 U.S. at 53). The majority and I disagree about whether the determination that a method of execution creates a substantial risk of serious harm is a factual finding reviewed for clear error or a legal conclusion reviewed less deferentially. The majority characterizes the determination as application of a “legal standard” and reviews it without deference. Maj. Op. at 5. My view that this determination is a factual finding that must be reviewed for clear error comes directly from the language of the Supreme Court. In Glossip, the Supreme Court said that the Oklahoma district court “did not commit clear error when it found that the prisoners failed to establish that Oklahoma’s use of a massive dose of midazolam in its execution protocol entails a substantial risk of severe pain.” Glossip, 135 S. Ct. at 2731. This statement is explicit that a district court’s determination as to whether midazolam entails a substantial risk of severe pain must be reviewed for clear error. In this case, the magistrate judge—relying on his “superior[] . . . position to make determinations of credibility” and “experience” in “the determination of fact”—evaluated evidence from scientific experts, eyewitnesses to executions, and ODRC employees discussing Ohio’s current execution protocol. Anderson, 470 U.S. at 574. Based on this evidence, the district court found that Plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that the use of midazolam as the first drug in a three-drug protocol creates a substantial risk of severe pain. Decision & Order at 104–05. The district court found “from both the expert opinions and the lay descriptions comparing executions with a barbiturate as the first drug and midazolam as the first drug that the drugs do not produce the same effects in those being executed . . . . [T]hose administered midazolam . . . take longer to die and exhibit different bodily behaviors in the process.” Id. at 104. Evaluating the evidence presented to it during the hearing, including the eyewitness testimony and the opposing viewpoints presented by the experts, the district court “conclude[d] that use of midazolam as the first drug in Ohio’s present three-drug protocol will create ‘a substantial risk of serious harm.’” Id. at 105. For several reasons, the district court’s determination was not clearly erroneous. First of all, the district court did not base its opinion on uncertainty, as the majority asserts. Plaintiffs’ No. 17-3076 In re Ohio Execution Protocol Litig. Page 24 experts testified unequivocally that Ohio’s midazolam three-drug protocol is highly likely to cause intolerable pain. Id. at 40, 43, 47, 55. The district court was in the position to make credibility determinations about the competing experts’ testimony, and the district court’s discussion of the experts’ testimony indicates that it found Plaintiffs’ experts to be more credible than Defendants’. See Decision & Order at 103–05. For example, the district court recognized that Defendants’ experts did not agree with each other about whether midazolam has a ceiling effect, and Dr. Buffington did not appear to agree with Dr. Antognini that midazolam has analgesic properties (only that it would sedate someone sufficiently to make them insensate to pain, which is distinct from actually eliminating pain). Id. at 71–75, 93–94. By contrast, Plaintiffs’ experts were in agreement that midazolam does not have analgesic properties, and, although he was less adamant, Dr. Bergese generally agreed with Dr. Stevens that midazolam has a ceiling effect. Id. 31, 87. The specific points of disagreement between Defendants’ experts support the district court’s determination that Plaintiffs’ experts were more convincing. It is also noteworthy that the district court in this case evaluated evidence that was not available to the Oklahoma district court in Glossip. The district court heard testimony from eyewitnesses to five executions. Two of those, the execution of Christopher Brooks and the execution of Ronald Smith, occurred after the Glossip decision. In addition to providing the district court with information about additional midazolam-involved executions, these recent executions also shed new light on earlier midazolam-involved executions. In Glossip, the Supreme Court noted that neither Lockett nor Wood received the dose of midazolam at issue in the case before it, and that there were problems with the Lockett execution that were not attributable to the drugs used (namely, “the execution team’s inability to obtain an IV access site”). Glossip, 135 S. Ct. at 2746. Taking into account these differences, the Supreme Court said that “[w]hen all of the circumstances are considered, the Lockett and Wood executions have little probative value for present purposes.” Id. This conclusion may have been reasonable given the circumstances at the time, but new circumstances entitle a district court to come to a different conclusion. The Brooks execution, and particularly the Smith execution, in which Smith coughed, flailed, and heaved for several minutes, cast the problems observed in the No. 17-3076 In re Ohio Execution Protocol Litig. Page 25 Lockett and Wood executions in a new light. Unlike Lockett and Wood, both Smith and Brooks were executed using 500 milligrams of midazolam followed by a paralytic drug and potassium chloride (like Ohio’s current protocol). Like Lockett and Wood, witnesses testified that Smith and Brooks moved and heaved during their executions. Witnesses’ testimony that Brooks was heaving and that Smith was heaving, coughing, and flailing could suggest that Lockett’s writhing and Wood’s gasping were attributable to midazolam’s inability to prevent the pain caused by paralytic drugs and potassium chloride, rather than to other circumstances. The district court made the specific finding that these eyewitnesses were credible, even though many “were from legal practices devoted to representing capital clients.” Id. at 24. The district court noted that “their testimony was carefully confined to observations rather than opinions,” in “contrast[] with some press characterizations of some of these executions as ‘botched,’ ‘horrendous,’ ‘barbaric,’ and so forth. These witnesses were carefully professional in not adding advocatory characterizations to their observations.” Id. at 24–25. The majority argues that the district court did not offer enough reasoning in support of its decision. Maj. Op. at 6. I agree that ideally the district court would have offered more reasoning in support of its findings. But it is clear that the district court’s specific findings were meant to be read in conjunction with its lengthy discussion of the testimony. And I do not agree that the district court’s 119-page opinion, which included a discussion of the testimony and specific findings of fact, did not provide sufficient reasoning to be entitled to the deference that we must give to district courts’ findings of fact. (The majority recognizes that the district court produced its opinion under tight timelines, but fails to acknowledge that these timelines were imposed by the State of Ohio.) In my view, the district court’s finding that “use of midazolam as the first drug in Ohio’s present three-drug protocol will create ‘a substantial risk of serious harm,’” Decision & Order at 105, was not clearly erroneous, and we are bound by this finding.
To succeed on their Eighth Amendment claim, Plaintiffs must also show that there is “an alternative that is ‘feasible, readily implemented, and in fact significantly reduce[s] a substantial risk of severe pain.’” Glossip, 135 S. Ct. at 2737 (quoting Baze, 553 U.S. at 52) (alteration in No. 17-3076 In re Ohio Execution Protocol Litig. Page 26 original). Glossip explicitly states that whether an alternative method of execution is available is a “factual finding” subject to the “clearly erroneous” standard of review. Glossip, 135 S. Ct. at 2738. Other than defining “availability” as a factual finding, the Supreme Court provides little guidance as to the definition of “availability.” As the district court observed, “In Baze and Glossip, the Supreme Court did not attempt to quantify how available the alternative method must be to qualify.” Decision & Order at 107. Plaintiffs proposed two alternative execution methods. For different reasons, each of these alternatives warrants a remand for a trial on the merits. As to the first alternative, a onedrug protocol using compounded pentobarbital, the district court found that by proposing compounded pentobarbital, “Plaintiffs have met their burden to identify a sufficiently available alternative method of execution to satisfy Baze and Glossip.” Decision & Order at 107. Ohio does not currently have pentobarbital on hand and it cannot purchase pentobarbital to use in executions directly from drug manufacturers. However, according to the district court, Ohio has taken key steps toward acquiring compounded pentobarbital, including passing secrecy statutes “to protect the anonymity of potential suppliers and compounders,” and applying for the import license necessary to purchase pentobarbital’s active ingredient. Id. This court resolved litigation over the secrecy statutes and entry of a protective order in Ohio’s favor. See In re: Ohio Execution Protocol Litig. (Fears v. Kasich), 845 F.3d 231, 240 (6th Cir. 2016); Phillips v. DeWine, 841 F.3d 405, 420 (6th Cir. 2016). These favorable resolutions facilitate the State’s access to compounded pentobarbital. The district court also noted that Dr. Buffington, who helped develop Ohio’s current execution protocol and who testified about the content of an affidavit he submitted in an Alabama case, “stated in his affidavit in that case that since other states had been able to procure compounded pentobarbital for their executions, he believed it could be obtained.” Decision & Order at 95. Because Defendants’ own expert testified that compounded pentobarbital could be obtained, because Ohio succeeded in passing secrecy statutes and securing a protective order for the specific purpose of obtaining compounded pentobarbital, and because Ohio is currently undertaking the steps necessary to secure compounded pentobarbital, I am not “left with the definite and firm conviction” that the district court erred when it found that compounded No. 17-3076 In re Ohio Execution Protocol Litig. Page 27 pentobarbital is an available alternative. Anderson, 470 U.S. at 573 (quoting United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. at 395). I would defer to the district court’s finding that compounded pentobarbital is available. For the second alternative, Plaintiffs proposed a two-drug protocol using midazolam and potassium chloride without a paralytic drug. Having decided that compounded pentobarbital is an available alternative, the district court did not make a finding as to whether the second alternative is available, or as to the more difficult question whether the second alternative would “significantly reduce[] a substantial risk of severe pain.” Glossip, 135 S. Ct. at 2737 (quoting Baze, 553 U.S. at 52). Particularly if the majority is correct that compounded pentobarbital is not an available alternative, Plaintiffs are entitled to a finding as to whether the second alternative satisfies the Baze/Glossip standard. Instead, the majority has determined that Plaintiffs should be executed with Ohio’s three-drug protocol without a court ever deciding whether their proposed two-drug protocol would significantly reduce the substantial risk of severe pain. There may be other possible execution methods that, if given a trial, Plaintiffs could prove are available and significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain. As anyone who reads the newspaper knows, the nation, and Ohio in particular, is in the midst of a virulent drugdeath epidemic. See, e.g., Kristine Phillips, Drugs Are Killing So Many People in Ohio That Cold-Storage Trailers Are Being Used As Morgues, Wash. Post (Mar. 16, 2017), http://wapo.st/2mNjFEp?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.e29b9f46cfc8 (“As with much of the United States, Ohio is in the throes of a heroin and opioid epidemic that shows no signs of abating. . . . The drug epidemic also has caused [Stark] county to spend roughly $75,000 a year in toxicology tests alone . . . . ‘We’re just spending all kinds of money on lab work because there’s so many different drugs,’ [Stark County investigator Rick Walters] said.”); Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, Amid Opioid Overdoses, Ohio Coroner’s Office Runs Out of Room for Bodies, N.Y. Times (Feb. 2, 2017), https://nyti.ms/2k0DV2Z (“On Thursday, only two days into February, the coroner’s office in Dayton, Ohio, had already handled 25 deaths — 18 caused by drug overdoses. In January, the office processed 145 cases in which the victims’ bodies had been destroyed by opioids.”); Katharine Q. Seelye et al., Inside a Killer Drug Epidemic: A Look at America’s Opioid Crisis, N.Y. Times (Jan. 6, 2017), https://nyti.ms/2k21lF0 (“Public health officials have No. 17-3076 In re Ohio Execution Protocol Litig. Page 28 called the current opioid epidemic the worst drug crisis in American history, killing more than 33,000 people in 2015. Overdose deaths were nearly equal to the number of deaths from car crashes. In 2015, for the first time, deaths from heroin alone surpassed gun homicides.”); Courtney Astolfi, Report: Ohio Ground-Zero for Opioid Overdose Deaths, Cleveland.com (Dec. 1, 2016), http://s.cleveland.com/OlL8JFD (“The Buckeye State topped the list of opioid overdose deaths among all 50 states, racking up 2,106 deaths in 2014.”). Given these reports, there are obviously multiple drugs that could be used to execute people. The district court’s findings in this case were not clearly erroneous. The district court did not clearly err by finding that Ohio’s current three-drug protocol creates a substantial risk of severe pain, and it did not clearly err by finding that alternative protocols are available. Not only did the district court not clearly err in its factual finding that compounded pentobarbital is an available alternative, but there are other possible alternative protocols that no court has ruled on. Plaintiffs proposed a two-drug protocol, and the district court did not rule on this alternative. Moreover, there may be other drug protocols that Plaintiffs would propose if given an opportunity to litigate this case fully. Therefore, Plaintiffs have satisfied the first requirement for a preliminary injunction by demonstrating a substantial likelihood of success on their Eighth Amendment claim. 2. Likelihood of irreparable harm, balance of equities, and public interest Having determined that Plaintiffs failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits of their Eighth Amendment claim, the majority does not assess whether Plaintiffs have satisfied the other requirements for a preliminary injunction. Because in my view Plaintiffs did show a likelihood of success on the merits, I address the other three requirements. Plaintiffs satisfy each one. Plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm if executed by a drug protocol later determined to be unconstitutional. “The key word in this consideration is irreparable.” Babler, 618 F.3d at 523–24 (quoting Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 90 (1974)). “A plaintiff’s harm from the denial of a preliminary injunction is irreparable if it is not fully compensable by monetary damages.” Obama for Am. v. Husted, 697 F.3d 423, 436 (6th Cir. 2012) (quoting Certified No. 17-3076 In re Ohio Execution Protocol Litig. Page 29 Restoration Dry Cleaning Network, L.L.C. v. Tenke Corp., 511 F.3d 535, 550 (6th Cir. 2007)). Being executed by a method of execution that is later determined to be unconstitutional is quintessentially an injury that is not fully compensable. Or, as the district court noted, “[t]he irreparable harm to the named Plaintiffs if temporary injunctive relief is not granted is patent”; “[w]hether or not Plaintiffs’ claims survive their deaths, the injury would be irreparable.” Decision & Order at 116. For the same reason, the balance of the equities favors Plaintiffs. Although “a State retains a significant interest in meting out a sentence of death in a timely fashion,” Nelson v. Campbell, 541 U.S. 637, 644 (2004), the harm from a delay in meting out a death sentence is not an irreparable harm. As a result, balancing the equities counsels in favor of delaying executions until a full trial on the merits can be held on the method of execution. Finally, the public interest favors Plaintiffs. The public has an interest in sentences being carried out, but it also has an interest in ensuring that those sentences are carried out in a constitutional manner. “[I]t is always in the public interest to prevent violation of a party’s constitutional rights.” Deja Vu of Nashville, Inc. v. Metro. Gov’t of Nashville & Davidson Cty., 274 F.3d 377, 400 (6th Cir. 2001) (quoting G & V Lounge, Inc. v. Mich. Liquor Control Comm’n, 23 F.3d 1071, 1079 (6th Cir. 1994)). As the district court stated, “[o]n balance, the public interest weighs in favor of granting temporary injunctive relief, but maintaining a fast track approach to adjudicating Plaintiffs’ claims on the merits.” Decision & Order at 118.