Opinion ID: 3065887
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: access to counsel

Text: [14] In Towery, we stated that “[c]ounsel 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 6 Unlike Lopez’s challenge, the In re Ohio Execution Protocol Litigation case involved challenges to deviations from the Ohio execution protocol by prison officials other than the Director, despite language in the Ohio protocol that the Director, and only the Director, could approve such deviations. 2012 WL 84548, at . Some of these deviations removed various procedural protections contained in the Ohio execution protocol—for example, requirements to review an inmate’s medical chart—which arguably exposed the inmates to differing risks of pain depending on whether the written protocol was followed. Lopez’s argument, however, appears to be that the Director’s exercise of discretion under the protocol is itself unconstitutionally impermissible. LOPEZ v. BREWER 5589 710-IO-F (Nov. 5, 2004), § 710.02, ¶ 1.3.3.5.” 672 F.3d at 658. Our decision in Towery was expressly contingent upon the State’s representations and commitments made during the preliminary injunction hearing before this court. Id. Contrary to the Director’s assertion, Towery did not “incorrectly rely on a 2004 protocol referring to visitation.” Instead, we noted that the 2004 protocol—which permitted counsel visits up to 45 minutes—was representative of the ADC’s long-standing practice of permitting counsel in-person visits with clients, including during the morning of the execution.7 Consistent with its representations to this court, the State permitted inperson non-contact attorney visits until 9:15 a.m. on the mornings of Towery’s and Moormann’s executions. The ADC now claims that its representations in Towery were limited to the Moormann and Towery executions and did not waive the Director’s right to exercise his discretion with respect to the scheduling of future in-person attorney visits on the morning of a scheduled execution. In fact, for Kemp’s execution, the Director notified Kemp’s attorney that attorney visitation would be permitted from 6:00 a.m. until 7 See ADC Internal Management Procedure 500.4 (Feb. 4, 1986) § 4.4.5 (“Visits from the Attorney of Record and a Chaplain of condemned inmate’s choice shall be permitted up to ½ hour prior to the scheduled time of the execution.”); Internal Management Procedure 500 (Mar. 10, 1993) § 5.6.3.6 (“Non-Contact Visits from the Attorney of Record and a Chaplain of condemned inmate’s choice shall be permitted up to two hours prior to the scheduled execution.”); Internal Management Procedure 500.4 (Dec. 24, 1994) § 5.2.1.2.4 (“Visits from the Attorney of Record and a Chaplain of condemned inmate’s choice shall be permitted up to one-half hour before the scheduled execution time.”); Department Order 710-IO-F (Nov. 5, 2004) § 1.3.3.5 (“Visits from the Attorney of Record and a Department Chaplain of condemned inmate’s choice are permitted up to forty-five (45) minutes prior to the scheduled execution.”); Department Order 710.09 (Sept. 15, 2009) § 1.6.2 (“The inmate’s visitation privileges shall be terminated at 2100 hours the day prior to the execution, excluding non-contact visits with the inmate’s Attorney of Record and facility chaplain as approved by the Division Director for Offender Operations.”); Department Order 710.09 (May 12, 2011) § 1.5.2 (same). 5590 LOPEZ v. BREWER 7:00 a.m. on the morning of the execution; any subsequent contact would occur telephonically and only within the discretion of the Director. The ADC has notified Lopez that a similar practice will be used for his execution. We made clear in Towery that the State’s repeated ad hoc modifications to its written protocol—“through add-on practices, trial court representations and acknowledgments, and last minute written amendments”—is not sustainable. 672 F.3d at 653. Since the implementation of Department Order 710.09 in September 15, 2009, Arizona has incrementally, and without reason, imposed restrictions on in-person noncontact attorney visits on the morning of a scheduled execution. The 2012 Protocol, as written, permits the Director to preclude any in-person non-contact visits with counsel beyond 9:00 p.m. the day before the execution. Lopez is understandably concerned about what will actually occur in his case. While the State assured us at oral argument that the Director has no plans to deviate from his current practice of permitting attorney non-contact visits from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. on the morning of the execution, we once again find ourselves evaluating a practice that is not, in fact, the written protocol. The State cites confidentiality of the execution team and timeliness of the execution as concerns that justify the written prohibition. While confidentiality is a legitimate concern in the abstract, the State proffers no contemporaneous evidence of any breaches of confidentiality by defense counsel. See Cal. First Amend. Coalition v. Woodford, 299 F.3d 868, 880 (9th Cir. 2002) (noting that defendants’ fear that execution team members will be publicly identified and retaliated against was an overreaction, supported only by questionable speculation). The State also fails to provide evidence that attorney visits led to delays in the execution. For example, Moormann’s execution started on time even though counsel was meeting with Moormann until 9:15 a.m. And prior versions of the protocol permitted non-contact visits up to 30 minutes before the execution. Thus, the State has failed to LOPEZ v. BREWER 5591 provide, and we cannot discern, any penological justification for the 9:00 p.m. cutoff on the day before the execution, nor for the 7:00 a.m. cutoff on the morning of the execution. Id. at 878 (“in reviewing a challenge to a prison regulation that burdens fundamental rights, we are directed to ask whether the regulation is reasonably related to legitimate penological objectives, or whether it represents an exaggerated response to those concerns.” (quoting Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 87 (1987)) (internal quotation marks omitted)). [15] The difficulty with the State’s variable limitation on attorney visits on the morning of the execution is that an individual petitioner has no expectation baseline. The policy can change up to the last hour. Until the record is developed through trial and final resolution of the underlying litigation, counsel and the court are subject to the “rolling protocol.” Towery, 672 F.3d at 653. To stabilize the counsel visit protocol, as an interim temporary matter, pending trial and any subsequent appeal, we direct the Director to permit counsel inperson non-contact visitation until 9:00 a.m. on the morning of a scheduled execution. The remainder of Lopez’s counsel challenge deals with having counsel observe the IV-placement procedure. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying this request.