Opinion ID: 2537080
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Heading: Constitutionality of Lethal Injection as Administered in Florida

Text: In Ventura v. State, 2 So.3d 194 (Fla.2009), this Court articulated the appropriate standard of review for a successive postconviction motion: Rule 3.851(f)(5)(B) permits the denial of a successive postconviction motion without an evidentiary hearing [i]f the motion, files, and records in the case conclusively show that the movant is entitled to no relief. A postconviction court's decision regarding whether to grant a rule 3.851 evidentiary hearing depends upon the written materials before the court; thus, for all practical purposes, its ruling is tantamount to a pure question of law and is subject to de novo review. See, e.g., Rose v. State, 985 So.2d 500, 505 (Fla.2008). In reviewing a trial court's summary denial of postconviction relief, we must accept the defendant's allegations as true to the extent that they are not conclusively refuted by the record. See Freeman v. State, 761 So.2d 1055, 1061 (Fla.2000). The Court will uphold the summary denial of a newly-discovered-evidence claim if the motion is legally insufficient or its allegations are conclusively refuted by the record. See McLin v. State, 827 So.2d 948, 954 (Fla.2002). Id. at 197-98. In his postconviction motion and brief, Darling has simply re-alleged the criticisms of Florida's revised protocol that have been presented in previous postconviction motions filed by the CCRC. This Court has repeatedly rejected Eighth Amendment challenges to Florida's August 2007 lethal-injection protocol. See, e.g., Marek v. State, 8 So.3d 1123, 1130 (Fla.), cert denied, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 40, 174 L.Ed.2d 625 (2009); Ventura, 2 So.3d at 202; Sexton v. State, 997 So.2d 1073, 1089 (Fla.2008); Schwab v. State, 995 So.2d 922, 933 (Fla.2008); Tompkins v. State, 994 So.2d 1072, 1081 (Fla.2008) (concluding that the Lightbourne v. McCollum, 969 So.2d 326 (Fla.2007), decision is further supported by the performance of the Schwab and Henyard [2] executions with no subsequent allegations of any newly discovered problems with Florida's lethal injection process); Power v. State, 992 So.2d 218, 221 (Fla.2008); Woodel v. State, 985 So.2d 524, 533-34 (Fla.2008); Lebron v. State, 982 So.2d 649, 666 (Fla.2008); Lightbourne, 969 So.2d at 350-53; Schwab v. State, 969 So.2d 318, 325 (Fla.2007) (Given the record in Lightbourne and our extensive analysis in our opinion in Lightbourne v. McCollum , we reject the conclusion that lethal injection as applied in Florida is unconstitutional.). Further, Darling's contention that this Court's recent lethal-injection decisions, including Lightbourne, have not applied the standard articulated by the Baze plurality was considered and rejected by this Court in Ventura. See Ventura, 2 So.3d at 198-201. Although Darling claims that the United States Supreme Court's decision in Baze warrants a reassessment of Florida's lethal injection protocol, this Court has made it abundantly clear that [n]othing contained within the various opinions of Baze v. Rees affects the validity of our decisions upholding Florida's current lethal-injection protocol. Id. at 202. This Court has previously considered and rejected each of Darling's constitutional challenges to Florida's lethal-injection protocol. We decline to recede from our prior precedent.