Opinion ID: 3065871
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: On appeal, Towery and Moormann challenged only three aspects of the district court’s denial of the preliminary injunction: 1) the constitutional infirmity of the 2012 Protocol under Baze; 2) the disparate treatment levied upon each individual inmate due to the Director’s discretion (equal protection claim); and 3) the prohibition on in-person contact with an attorney after 9:00 p.m. on the day prior to the scheduled execution.3 Before the hearing on the preliminary injunction, the State gave notice that it would proceed with the three-drug proto- 3 Towery and Moormann did not challenge on appeal the district court’s decision regarding the imported pancuronium bromide, or the lack of notice as to which drugs will be used during the execution and where the IV lines will be placed (except to the extent those issues are relevant to the equal protection challenge). We therefore do not consider those issues. TOWERY v. BREWER 2513 col. On February 27, 2012, however—less than 48 hours before the first scheduled execution—the State changed its mind and filed a Notice of Intent to Administer the One-Drug Protocol, explaining that it discovered during training sessions that its foreign-supplied pancuronium bromide expired in January 2012. Because of the unavailability of pancuronium bromide, ADC intends to use only domestically-obtained pentobarbital and to administer a one-drug protocol. Consequently, due to last minute changes by the State regarding the protocol that will be used during Towery and Moormann’s executions, the landscape of this appeal has changed dramatically. We now address only the one-drug aspects of the 2012 Protocol, as supplemented by the State’s representations and commitments made in the hearing before us on February 27, 2012. I. STANDARD FOR GRANTING A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION A preliminary injunction “should not be granted unless the movant, by a clear showing, carries the burden of persuasion.” Mazurek v. Armstrong, 520 U.S. 968, 972 (1997) (per curiam) (citation omitted). Under the “serious questions” version of the test, a preliminary injunction is appropriate when a plaintiff demonstrates that “serious questions going to the merits were raised and the balance of hardships tips sharply in the plaintiff’s favor.” Alliance for the Wild Rockies v. Cottrell, 632 F.3d 1127, 1135 (9th Cir. 2011) (citation omitted). This approach requires that the elements of the preliminary injunction test be balanced, so that a stronger showing of one element may offset a weaker showing of another. “ ‘[S]erious questions going to the merits’ and a balance of hardships that tips sharply towards the plaintiff can support issuance of a preliminary injunction, so long as the plaintiff also shows that there is a likelihood of irreparable injury and that the injunction is in the public interest.” Id. We review the denial of a preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion. Lands Council v. McNair, 537 F.3d 981, 986 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc). 2514 TOWERY v. BREWER In the context of a capital case, the Supreme Court has emphasized that these principles apply when a condemned prisoner asks a federal court to enjoin his impending execution because “[f]iling an action that can proceed under § 1983 does not entitle the complainant to an order staying an execution as a matter of course.” Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573, 583-84 (2006). Rather, “a stay of execution is an equitable remedy” and “equity must be sensitive to the State’s strong interest in enforcing its criminal judgments without undue interference from the federal courts.” Id. at 584. To obtain preliminary injunctive relief, Towery and Moormann must demonstrate that: 1) they are likely to succeed on the merits of such a claim; 2) they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief; 3) the balance of equities tips in their favor; and 4) an injunction is in the public interest. Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S., 207 (2008). Because the likelihood of success on the merits of the modified protocol as it will be applied to the two upcoming executions is determinative, we discuss it in detail. II. REVIEW OF 2012 PROTOCOL AND SUPPLEMENTAL REQUIREMENTS
At the hearing before this court, the State made a number of representations and undertook to alter the 2012 Protocol in various ways with respect to Towery and Moormann. We accept those representations and undertakings as binding on the State. The protocol therefore consists of the following, as it will be applied at Towery and Moormann’s executions: [1] 1. One-Drug Protocol: We review the 2012 Protocol only as it pertains to the one-drug protocol. We are not reviewing the three-drug protocol; any challenge to the threedrug protocol is moot for purposes of this appeal. TOWERY v. BREWER 2515 2. The 2012 Protocol with the following amendments and undertakings, as agreed to by the State: [2] a. Qualifications of the IV Team: According to the State, the IV Team to be used for both executions is comprised of a licensed nurse with seventeen years of experience and a medically-licensed physician. Both of these individuals have had experience placing IVs within the last twelve months, not including any placements performed or training gained during the recent pre-execution training sessions. The State also reaffirmed the position it took before the district court that “relevant experience,” as used in Paragraph 1.2.5.1 of the 2012 Protocol, means that IV Team members must have no less than the training that is traditionally given for people to be licensed to place IVs. We view this representation as a binding one that cabins the meaning of “appropriately trained” and “relevant experience” in the context of the 2012 Protocol. b. Backup Drugs: In addition to the full set of syringes to be used “in the implementation of the death sentence,” the State represented that there will be one additional set of syringes, along with the necessary chemicals and drugs, available for immediate administration should circumstances so require. The State acknowledged at oral argument that this backup arrangement was “no big deal.” The IV Team members shall insert a primary IV catheter and a backup IV catheter, as required by Attachment D, § E.1 of the 2012 Protocol. c. Access to Counsel: Counsel for Towery and Moormann will be permitted in-person visits with their clients, including during the morning of the execution, under the long-standing ADC practice, as reflected in Department Order 710-IO-F (Nov. 5, 2004), § 710.02, ¶ 1.3.3.5. [3] Our decision is contingent upon the State’s representations and commitments made during the preliminary injunction hearing. With these representations, the protocol parallels 2516 TOWERY v. BREWER the one reviewed under Dickens with respect to training and qualifications of the IV Team and the availability of backup drugs and catheters. It also mirrors the prior practice regarding access to counsel and resolves Towery and Moormann’s claims on these issues. The remaining claim relates to the number of training sessions. That issue largely goes away in light of the identification of the qualifications of the individuals who will be on the IV Team for Towery and Moormann’s executions. Nonetheless, we address it because it was not directly encompassed in the representations made during the hearing before us. We do so, however, not in the abstract, but in light of the training and experience of the current members of the IV Team. [4] The 2012 Protocol eliminates the requirement that IV Team members participate in ten practice sessions per year. Instead, the IV Team members are only required to participate in training sessions scheduled for one day prior to the actual execution. 2012 Protocol, § 710.02, ¶ 1.2.5.5. While ten trainings may be better than a single one-day training, Towery and Moormann do not make a showing that for their executions the lack of practice occasioned from the singular day of trainings will lead to a substantial risk of harm. An inmate cannot succeed on an Eighth Amendment claim by showing one more step the State could take as a failsafe for other, independently adequate measures. Baze, 553 U.S. at 60-61. “Where an execution protocol contains sufficient safeguards, the risk of not adopting an additional safeguard is too ‘remote and attenuated’ to give rise to a substantial risk of serious harm.” Dickens, 631 F.3d at 1149 (citing Baze, 553 U.S. at 58-59). [5] The amended 2012 Protocol, as outlined above, on the basis of representations and commitments made at the February 27 hearing, comports with the protocol approved in Baze. We therefore conclude that Towery and Moormann have not demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on their Eighth Amendment challenge. TOWERY v. BREWER 2517
CHALLENGE Towery and Moormann argue that the grant of discretion to the Director to make decisions regarding the manner in which his execution will be carried out violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. We do not agree. The 2012 Protocol, Towery and Moormann observe, grants the Director the discretion to select members of the IV Team, provided they are “appropriately trained,” as well as to designate the IV Team Leader. The Director also has discretion to choose either a three- or one-drug protocol, using either sodium pentothal or pentobarbital and to decide, “upon the advice of the IV Team Leader,” whether to use peripheral or central femoral IV access to administer the drugs (as long as a medically-licensed physician is available to implement the latter option). Towery and Moormann maintain that the broad grants of discretion to the Director violate the Equal Protection Clause, either because they burden a fundamental right and so fail strict scrutiny, or because they treat Towery and Moormann, individually, as a “class of one” without a rational basis for doing so. Neither argument has merit. [6] As we have already determined, the protocol as it will be implemented for Towery and Moormann’s executions does not violate their right under the Eighth Amendment to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Where there is no Eighth Amendment violation, the district court ruled, that necessarily means that there has been no interference with fundamental rights sufficient to trigger strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. See Mass. Bd. of Ret. v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 312 (1976). We do not need to adopt this broad proposition to conclude that given the ways the Director has chosen to exercise his discretion in the upcoming executions, there has 2518 TOWERY v. BREWER been no showing here of any burden on the right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment. Towery and Moormann argue otherwise, relying on Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 105 (2000). Urging that there is a distinction between state action that violates a fundamental right and state action that merely burdens a fundamental right, they proffer that the latter was sufficient to trigger strict scrutiny in Bush and should also be here. [7] The right to vote, however, “ ‘can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.’ ” Id. (quoting Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 555 (1964)). A prisoner’s right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment, in contrast, 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. Treating one similarly situated prisoner differently from another with regard to punishment does not inherently impact the right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment (although it might for other reasons violate the Equal Protection Clause). [8] That is not to say that there could not be exercises of discretion that do burden the right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment. The contrast with the litigation surrounding Ohio’s lethal injection protocol, invoked by Towery and Moormann in support of their fundamental rights Equal Protection argument, is instructive. In those cases, plaintiffs were able to show 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. See 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 at ___, 2012 WL 118322, at  (6th Cir. Jan. 13, 2012). Here, no TOWERY v. BREWER 2519 such showing has been made, either generally or with respect to the planned application of the protocol to Towery and Moormann’s executions. The fundamental rights prong of Equal Protection analysis therefore cannot apply. Alternatively, Towery and Moormann argue that each is a “class of one,” and that the protocol allows the Director to treat him differently from others similarly situated with no rational basis for doing so. See Vill. of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000). We disagree. [9] The class-of-one doctrine does not apply to forms of state action that “by their nature involve discretionary decisionmaking based on a vast array of subjective, individualized assessments.” Engquist v. Oregon Dep’t of Agric., 553 U.S. 591, 603 (2008). “In such cases,” the Court noted, the rule that people should be ‘treated alike, under like circumstances and conditions’ is not violated when one person is treated differently from others, because treating like individuals differently is an accepted consequence of the discretion granted. In such situations, allowing a challenge based on the arbitrary singling out of a particular person would undermine the very discretion that such state officials are entrusted to exercise. Id. [10] Here, decisions on matters such as which drug protocol to use, which people to select for the execution team, and whether to use a central femoral IV are, under Arizona’s statutory scheme, relegated to the Director, with no State law requirement that there be uniformity. Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13757(A). Absent any pattern of generally exercising the discretion in a particular manner while treating one individual differently and detrimentally, there is no basis for Equal Protection scrutiny under the class-of-one theory. In other 2520 TOWERY v. BREWER words, the existence of discretion, standing alone, cannot be an Equal Protection violation. At the very least, there must be some respect in which the discretion is being exercised so that the complaining individual is being treated less favorably than others generally are. [11] Even if we were to subject the protocol’s grant of discretion to the Director to rational basis review, it would survive our consideration. It is rational for ADC to conclude that the Director is best situated to select the execution team from those available who meet the criteria listed in the protocol (assuming those criteria do not themselves create a risk of harm greater than that tolerable under the Eighth Amendment), or to decide that the Director should be the one to select which of the four possible drug sequences to use, or to assign to the Director and the IV Team Leader the task of selecting which IV site to use. It is entirely rational for these determinations to be made on a case-by-case basis, as they 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. The Equal Protection claim, as framed here, cannot succeed on the merits.
FOR THEWILD ROCKIES [12] We recognize that Towery and Moormann demon- strate irreparable harm, as does every § 1983 plaintiff in an injunction appeal involving an upcoming execution. We also recognize that the State ordinarily has “a strong interest in enforcing its judgments without undue interference from federal courts,” although, as indicated at the outset, that interest can be and has been undermined to a degree by Arizona’s pattern of behavior in the recent execution litigation. Finally, we also recognize that the victims of crime have an important interest in “timely enforcement of a sentence.” Hill, 547 U.S. at 584-85. Nonetheless, in light of our conclusion that Towery TOWERY v. BREWER 2521 and Moormann do not raise serious questions going to the merits of their Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment claims with regard to their executions as they will actually be carried out, we conclude that Towery and Moormann do not meet the standards under Winter and Alliance for the Wild Rockies for issuance of a preliminary injunction. AFFIRMED; the request for stay of execution is DENIED.