Opinion ID: 698660
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The factual predicate for Turner's claim

Text: 29 Turner also argues that the issue he now advances could not have been raised in his 1991 federal habeas petition because at that time he lacked the factual predicate for his claim. He says the claim is only now becoming ripe for adjudication, Habeas Petition at p 14. We disagree. 30 Turner's claim, which at bottom pleads that he has suffered enough, has two factual components. The first component is temporal and relates to his lengthy stay on death row, including generally the concomitant psychological trauma of such a lengthy stay. The second component is non-temporal and relates to the specific conditions of his confinement, conditions which he likens to torture. 31 As for the conditions of his confinement, Turner alleges the following facts. 6 First, he was transferred to the death chamber on three separate occasions (apparently in 1980, 1981 and 1985) and spent a total of six months there. While he was in the death chamber several acquaintances were executed, he smelled burning flesh after one execution, and the guards taunted him, showed him the electric chair, and tested it near his cell. Second, several execution dates were set between 1980 and 1986. Third, he came within hours of execution in 1985. And fourth, he emphasizes his detention from April 1987 through February 1994 in the terrible M-Building at Powhatan Correctional Center. In particular, he focuses on his stay in the isolation area of the M-Building, which lasted from April 1987 through early 1991, when he was transferred to the M-Building's segregation area. 32 It is apparent that all of these events and conditions of confinement that Turner describes occurred prior to his filing the December 1991 petition, with the possible exception of his detention in the segregation area of the M-Building, which took place both before and after his 1991 petition was filed. With respect to the M-Building, by the time his 1991 petition was filed he had for years been detained there under the allegedly torturous conditions he now describes. All of this could have been raised in his 1991 petition. 33 As for the temporal component of his claim, Turner emphasizes that he has been on death row for fifteen years, a fact that he could not have included in his 1991 petition. This is undoubtedly true but irrelevant. The question is whether petitioner possessed, or by reasonable means could have obtained, a sufficient basis to allege a claim in the first petition and pursue the matter through the habeas process, McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 498, 111 S.Ct. at 1472. Turner had a sufficient basis to allege his claim in December 1991 and pursue it through habeas. To be sure, had he raised the claim in 1991 it would have been based on twelve, not fifteen, years on death row. But Turner cannot seriously contend that his Eighth Amendment theory (if it has merit at all) only works for prisoners on death row for more than twelve years. (Indeed, the Privy Council's opinion in Pratt, supra, upon which Turner relies so heavily, suggests that more than five years on death row would presumptively constitute inhuman or degrading punishment under the Jamaican constitution.) At best Turner is suggesting that evidence of an additional few years on death row makes his claim stronger than it would have been had he raised it in 1991. But the Supreme Court has made clear that the [o]mission of the claim will not be excused merely because evidence discovered later might also have ... strengthened the claim. McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 498, 111 S.Ct. at 1472. 34 In any event, while his 1991 petition was pending in the district court (through February 1993), Turner could have moved to amend it to add this claim. 7 Alternatively, he could have included this claim in his 1991 petition and sought leave to amend (while it was pending in district court) to add the additional time spent on death row as well as any additional facts about the conditions of his confinement (e.g., his continued detention in the segregation area of the M-Building). Had he included this claim in his 1991 petition, it would have been obvious to the district court that he would continue to be detained on death row for as long as it took that petition to get through federal habeas. In this connection, when Turner's 1991 petition was pending in our court on appeal (through September 28, 1994) we could have taken notice that although his petition said twelve years on death row, he would have then been on death row for over fourteen years. 8 35 Finally, we note that the implications of Turner's argument here are unsettling. Under his argument a habeas petition should never raise this Eighth Amendment claim until the eve of execution, for only then would the claim be sufficiently strong and ripe. And a petitioner could never abuse the writ by failing to raise this issue in an earlier petition, for he could always argue that the factual predicate had just developed.