Opinion ID: 1697471
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Error Rates in Executions and Training Exercises

Text: The Defendant asserts that error rates in recent DOC mock executions demonstrate that the new DOC protocol fails to remedy the problems of the previous procedures and therefore create a substantial risk of serious harm violative of Baze. He provides the analysis of Janine Arvizu, whom he identifies as a certified quality auditor. Ms. Arvizu is the same auditor whose analysis was rejected by this Court and the Florida Supreme Court in Schwab's prior motion because the Defendant failed to demonstrate how this person was qualified to offer an opinion on this subject (Schwab fails to sufficiently explain how this auditor is qualified to provide a reliability and efficacy report on DOC's method of execution. Schwab v. State, 969 So.2d 318 (Fla.2007)). Even assuming the Court accepts the analysis of error rates provided by Schwab as true, it finds that they do not rise to constitutional errors. If errors were made in prior Florida executions, no court has held that any of them created an Eighth Amendment violation. Despite the claim of numerous errors both in actual and mock executions, Schwab cites to no Florida lethal injection execution in which DOC's protocol or the implementation thereof were found to have errors arising to constitutional levels. As noted by Justice Roberts in Baze, an isolated mishap alone does not give rise to an Eighth Amendment violation, precisely because such an event, while regrettable, does not suggest cruelty, or that the procedure at issue gives rise to a `substantial risk of serious harm.' Id. at 1531.