Opinion ID: 1302764
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Court Should Hear and Grant Smith's Lackey Claim

Text: The majority holds that Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), prevents us from recognizing a new Eighth Amendment claim for prisoners who have spent a very long time on death row. The Supreme Court in Teague did bar courts from announcing new rules of constitutional law on habeas review, 489 U.S. at 316, 109 S.Ct. 1060, but it also provided for two exceptions. Teague does not apply where the new rule is one that (1) places certain kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the criminal law-making authority to proscribe or (2) requires the observance of those procedures that ... are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. Id. at 307, 109 S.Ct. 1060. The first exception clearly applies here. See Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 330, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989), aff'd and rev'd on other grounds, 532 U.S. 782, 121 S.Ct. 1910, 150 L.Ed.2d 9 (2001). The Supreme Court in Penry explained why Teague did not prevent it from holding that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of mentally retarded persons: In our view, a new rule placing a certain class of individuals beyond the State's power to punish by death is analogous to a new rule placing certain conduct beyond the State's power to punish at all. In both cases, the Constitution itself deprives the State of the power to impose a certain penalty. ... Therefore, the first exception set forth in Teague should be understood to cover not only rules forbidding criminal punishment of certain primary conduct but also rules prohibiting a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense. Id. at 329-30, 109 S.Ct. 2934. Cf. Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 409-10, 106 S.Ct. 2595, 91 L.Ed.2d 335 (1986) (declaring a defendant who had become insane since his conviction ineligible for the death penalty on Eighth Amendment grounds). By the same logic, Teague does not prevent this court from holding that execution after a long tenure on death row violates the Eighth Amendment. The court may reach the merits of Smith's Lackey claim. We have always found a way to avoid addressing Lackey claims on the merits, usually by invoking AEDPA's bar against second or successive petitions. See, e.g., Allen v. Ornoski, 435 F.3d 946, 948 (9th Cir.2006); LaGrand v. Stewart, 170 F.3d 1158, 1160 (9th Cir.1999); Gerlaugh v. Stewart, 167 F.3d 1222, 1223 (9th Cir. 1999); Ortiz v. Stewart, 149 F.3d 923, 944 (9th Cir.1998); but see McKenzie v. Day, 57 F.3d 1461, 1467 (9th Cir.1995) (declining to stay execution because it was highly unlikely that McKenzie's Lackey claim would be successful if litigated to its conclusion.). AEDPA does not apply here, see Maj. Op. at 1141, and neither does Teague. We are out of excuses. There is a strong case to be made that long stays on death row violate the Eighth Amendment. [8] As I explained more fully in my dissent to the denial of the stay in Ceja v. Stewart, 134 F.3d 1368 (1998), the Supreme Court has made clear that the imposition of the death penalty must serve legitimate and substantial penological goals in order to survive Eighth Amendment scrutiny, and it must serve those goals more effectively than a less severe punishment. Id. at 1370 (B. Fletcher, J., dissenting) (citing Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 183, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976)). Specifically, a capital sentence may be imposed when it is the only way to express society's moral outrage at particularly offensive conduct and functions as an effective deterrent. Id. Where the death penalty ceases realistically to further these purposes... its imposition would then be the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purpose. A penalty with such negligible returns to the State would be patently excessive and cruel and unusual punishment violative of the Eighth Amendment. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 312, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972) (White, J., concurring). Smith has suffered 27 years on death row, living in solitary confinement and under the constant threat of execution. See Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 288, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972) (Brennan, J., concurring) ([T]he prospect of pending execution exacts a frightful toll during the inevitable long wait between the imposition of sentence and the actual infliction of death.); In re Medley, 134 U.S. 160, 172, 10 S.Ct. 384, 33 L.Ed. 835 (1890) (waiting for an execution without knowing when it is to take place is one of the most horrible feelings to which [a person] can be subjected). Executing Smith after all this time would go far beyond what is necessary to satisfy society's moral outrage over his horrible crimes. It is hard to see how Smith's execution today would have any deterrent effect. See Furman, 408 U.S. at 302, 92 S.Ct. 2726 (Brennan, J., concurring) ([The] validity[of the death penalty] depends upon the existence of a system in which the punishment of death is invariably and swiftly imposed.). Executing Smith would not advance the purposes underlying the death penalty, and thus would violate the Eighth Amendment. Because I would find that Smith has proven ineffective assistance of counsel and a Lackey violation, I would grant the petition for habeas corpus.