Opinion ID: 221564
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Merits of the Claims

Text: To state an Eighth Amendment claim, DeYoung must demonstrate that (1) the State is being deliberately indifferent (2) to a condition that poses a substantial risk of serious harm to him. Powell (Williams), 641 F.3d at 1257. In the lethal injection context, this standard requires an inmate to show `an objectively intolerable risk of harm that prevents prison officials from pleading that they were subjectively blameless for purposes of the Eighth Amendment.' Id. (quoting Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35, 50, 128 S.Ct. 1520, 1531, 170 L.Ed.2d 420 (2008) (plurality opinion)). [T]he risk must be sure or very likely to cause ... needless suffering. Baze, 553 U.S. at 50, 128 S.Ct. at 1531 (plurality opinion) (quotation marks omitted). The evidence DeYoung provides does not satisfy this Eighth Amendment standard. A significant part of DeYoung's Eighth Amendment claim in his § 1983 complaint is based on the State of Georgia's execution of Roy Blankenship on June 23, 2011. DeYoung largely points to events surrounding the Blankenship execution as the basis for his Eighth Amendment claim. DeYoung attempts to use evidence of the Blankenship execution to show two things: (1) that administration of 5,000 milligrams of pentobarbital to an inmate causes needless suffering in and of itself, and (2) that the pentobarbital dose does not adequately render an inmate unconscious, thereby leading to needless suffering. [4] After hearing testimony by DeYoung's expert and reviewing multiple affidavits, the district court found (1) that DeYoung failed to establish that pentobarbital caused Blankenship any pain during his execution given that DeYoung's expert failed to provide a medical explanation for why pentobarbital might have caused Blankenship pain, or will cause pain in executions; and (2) that, in any event, DeYoung has absolutely no likelihood of success on the merits of his claims. As the district court aptly found, DeYoung's medical expert, David B. Waisel, M.D., formulated his opinion based on witnesses' accounts of the execution and some movement by Blankenship during the initial three minutes at the start of the execution process. The witnesses disagree about two things: (1) the type of movement; and (2) whether it occurred before or during the administration of the pentobarbital. As to the movement, witnesses describe it in very different ways. To some, Blankenship was just looking up and watching what was occurring, looked at his left arm (which had an IV saline drip) and then 30 to 60 seconds later looked toward his right arm where the administration of the pentobarbital was starting. To others, Blankenship appeared to grimace, or have a startled face, or jerked his arm twice, or had his mouth open and tried to mouth something. As to timing, some believe all the movement occurred before the pentobarbital was started in the IV and others appear to think that it was after the pentobarbital was started in the IV. In any event, the movement occurred only a few times and all briefly during a total time period of three minutes. The evidence undisputedly shows that Blankenship became still and was unconscious before the second drug was administered. Even assuming Blankenship's movement was during the administration of the pentobarbital or right after, the evidence in this record does not establish a substantial risk of serious harm from the pentobarbital, or even that Blankenship necessarily suffered any harm, much less serious harm. First, as the district court pointed out, Dr. Waisel entirely failed to provide a medical explanation for why pentobarbital might have caused Blankenship pain. To the contrary, Dr. Waisel testified that a patient will not feel pain at the moment when a drug is introduced intravenously unless it is a drug, such as potassium chloride, which causes a burning sensation. Second, the district court noted that Dr. Waisel admitted that any `suffering' was short lived as it clearly ended within a few minutesthree minutes at the mostafter the pentobarbital was injected. The Eighth Amendment does not protect against all harm, only serious harm; and it does not prohibit all risks, only substantial risks. Simply because an execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of `objectively intolerable risk of harm' that qualifies as cruel and unusual. Baze, 553 U.S. at 50, 128 S.Ct. at 1531 (plurality opinion). In any event, Dr. Waisel was not present at the Blankenship execution; rather, he opines from the witnesses' varied descriptions of Blankenship's movements that those movements were a sign of discomfort, which Dr. Waisel termed suffering. Dr. Waisel acknowledged that no one reported any movement by Blankenship after the nurse's consciousness check. Further, Blankenship's autopsy revealed no evidence of trauma. The catheters were inside Blankenship's veins and the veins were not burst or broken. There was no infiltration of fluid in the soft tissue of the right arm near the catheter site. Notably too, DeYoung presented no evidence to show that unconsciousness is not achieved after the complete administration of a 5000-mg dose of pentobarbital. [5] All parties agree that the purpose of the anesthetic in Georgia's three-drug lethal injection protocol is to render the inmate unconscious before administration of the second and third drugs. As the record demonstrates, and the district court found, a consciousness check was performed on Blankenship after he was administered the pentobarbital and prior to injection of the second drug pancuronium bromide, as Georgia's lethal injection protocol requires. It is clear that Blankenship's execution did not proceed to the second drug until after he was fully unconscious. And as the district court found, DeYoung's execution, or any other under the Georgia protocol, cannot proceed until he is unconscious. To the contrary, Georgia's protocol specifically provides that GDOC officials will not administer the pancuronium bromide but will instead administer more anesthetic and conduct more consciousness checks until the inmate has been shown to be unconscious. DeYoung has wholly failed to show that pentobarbital, once fully administered and allowed to act, is ineffective as an anesthetic. As the district court succinctly found, Georgia's use of pentobarbital does not create a substantial risk of serious harm to inmates.
To state an equal protection claim, DeYoung must show that the State will treat him disparately from other similarly situated persons. See Amnesty Int'l, USA v. Battle, 559 F.3d 1170, 1180 (11th Cir.2009). Because he does not allege the disparate treatment burdens his fundamental rights or is based on his membership in a suspect class, DeYoung must show that the disparate treatment is not rationally related to a legitimate government interest. Leib v. Hillsborough Cnty. Pub. Transp. Comm'n, 558 F.3d 1301, 1306 (11th Cir.2009). DeYoung's equal protection claim asserts, essentially, that Georgia's written lethal injection protocol is insufficiently specific and thus the GDOC deviates from it on an ad hoc basis, leading to disparate treatment for different inmates. DeYoung has not shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of this claim. First, as the district court correctly noted, there is no support for DeYoung's novel proposition that the Equal Protection Clause requires a written execution protocol sufficiently detailed to ensure that every execution is performed in a precisely identical manner. Moreover, our review of the Georgia lethal injection protocol reveals it to be highly detailed as to nearly every aspect of the execution process. Second, the deviations DeYoung cites that lead to the disparate treatment of which he complains are all ways by which the GDOC provides more protection for an inmate and the execution process than the written protocol provides. [7] The State has a legitimate interest in ensuring that its executions occur in a thorough manner with maximum inmate safeguards, and the alleged deviations from the written protocol are rationally related to that interest. DeYoung has not shown a substantial likelihood of success on his equal protection claim.