Opinion ID: 763300
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lethal Gas

Text: 10 The use of lethal gas as a method of execution has been extensively litigated in California since 1992. In that year, plaintiff David Fierro and others filed a class action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 challenging lethal gas as an unconstitutional method of execution. One of the plaintiffs was Robert Alton Harris, whose execution was scheduled to take place four days after the case was filed. Harris' participation resulted in a number of stays of execution, all subsequently vacated by the Supreme Court. See Fierro v. Gomez (Fierro II), 77 F.3d 301, 302-03 (9th Cir.1996), for the history of the litigation. 11 The Fierro case was ultimately tried before the district court in 1993. After the trial, the court entered an order holding that lethal gas, as employed pursuant to the protocol governing its use in California, constituted a cruel and unusual method of execution and enjoined its use as a means of execution. 865 F.Supp. 1387 (N.D.Cal.1994). 12 On appeal by the State, we affirmed. See Fierro II, 77 F.3d at 301. After our decision, the California statute governing executions was amended to provide lethal injection as the primary method of execution. 1 Inmates sentenced to death before the effective date of the act were given the option of choosing lethal gas as the method of execution in their cases. See Cal.Penal Code § 3604(b). The Supreme Court vacated our decision in Fierro II and remanded with instructions to reconsider our decision in light of the statutory change. Gomez v. Fierro, 519 U.S. 918, 117 S.Ct. 285, 136 L.Ed.2d 204 (1996). 13 In response to the Supreme Court's order, we held that the case was not ripe for decision, since no inmate in California was then subject to execution by lethal gas, at least in the absence of an affirmative choice by an inmate to have lethal gas used in his or her execution. Fierro v. Terhune (Fierro III), 147 F.3d 1158, 1160 (9th Cir.1998). We remanded to the district court with instructions to vacate its judgment, giving the district court the authority to reinstate its judgment when presented with a ripe claim. Id.
14 The Arizona experience somewhat parallels that of California. The use of lethal gas was the only authorized method of execution from the 1930s until 1992. The first case challenging the use of lethal gas in Arizona was the 1934 case of Hernandez v. State, 43 Ariz. 424, 32 P.2d 18 (1934). The Arizona Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the use of lethal gas in that case, as it did again in 1987 in State v. Williams, 166 Ariz. 132, 800 P.2d 1240 (1987). In the latter case, it noted that Williams' claim had been uniformly rejected on the federal level. Id., 800 P.2d at 1250. 15 The Arizona legislature amended the statute in 1992 to make lethal injection the designated method of execution, with those inmates who were sentenced to death prior to the amendment having the option of choosing lethal gas as the method of execution to be used in his or her case. Ariz.Rev.Stat. § 13-704(B).
16 Karl LaGrand committed the crimes of which he was convicted in 1982. He was sentenced to death in 1984, and his direct appeal was concluded in 1987. The first post-conviction relief proceedings were completed in Arizona Superior Court in 1989. The Arizona Supreme Court denied review, as did the United States Supreme Court. See LaGrand v. Arizona, 501 U.S. 1259, 111 S.Ct. 2911, 115 L.Ed.2d 1074 (1991). 17 At no time in the direct appeal or the first PCR petition did LaGrand argue the unconstitutionality of the use of lethal gas as a method of execution. The claim was raised for the first time in the habeas corpus petition filed in 1992, and amended in 1993. The district court rejected the claim as unexhausted, and this court held the claim was not ripe for decision. See 133 F.3d at 1264.
18 LaGrand recently presented his lethal gas claim to the Arizona Superior Court, which rejected it as waived. LaGrand argues here that since our previous decision was that the claim was not ripe, it can now be heard because it is now admittedly ripe. LaGrand's argument fails to account for the procedural default declared by the state court. The state court's decision appears sound as a matter of state law. There was no ripeness impediment to LaGrand's presentation of the lethal gas claim at any time during his state court efforts in the 1980s. At that time, lethal gas was the only method of execution authorized for use in Arizona. The fact that the claim is now ripe for decision in this court is no answer to the procedural default declared by the state courts. 19 When LaGrand presented this claim to the district court in the present habeas petition, it rejected the claim on the basis that it was procedurally barred, and that LaGrand had not shown cause and prejudice to excuse the procedural default. This is the only place where we disagree with the district court's analysis.
20 As the district court said, cause exists if the petitioner can show that some objective factor external to the defense impeded counsel's efforts to comply with the state's procedural rule. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 753, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991). As the district court also noted, such objective factors can include interference by officials which makes compliance with the state's procedural rule impractical, a showing that the factual or legal basis for a claim was not reasonably available to counsel, and constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel. District Court Order at 11 (citing Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488, 106 S.Ct. 2639, 91 L.Ed.2d 397 (1986)). 21 In 1984 and the years following, LaGrand's counsel was facing a statutory scheme which was upheld in 1934 in Hernandez, and in 1987 in Williams. Moreover, no reported case anywhere had held lethal gas to be unconstitutional and there was no reason to believe that any court would hold to the contrary. 22 The State characterizes LaGrand's position as one of futility, and points to cases which hold that the futility of presenting an objection at trial cannot be cause for failing to make the objection. The futility doctrine as an excuse for not presenting a claim to the state court has met with disfavor in the Supreme Court and here. See Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 130, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982); Noltie v. Peterson, 9 F.3d 802, 805 (9th Cir.1993). But we believe the portion of Engle v. Isaac quoted by the district court sets out the point in the analysis where we diverge from the district court: If a defendant perceives a constitutional claim and believes it may find favor in the federal courts, he may not bypass the state courts simply because he thinks they will be unsympathetic to the claim. 456 U.S. at 130, 102 S.Ct. 1558. 23 As pointed out above, there was no reason to believe that any court, anywhere, would be sympathetic to the claim that lethal gas was an unconstitutional method of execution. According to the information given to us by the parties, there was no available factual information concerning the painful nature of lethal gas execution, until the 1992 execution of Don Harding in Arizona, and the contemporaneous California executions relied on by the district court in Fierro. This is clearly a claim for which the factual or legal basis was not reasonably available at the time that LaGrand pursued his direct appeal in state court. See Murray, 477 U.S. at 488, 106 S.Ct. 2639. 24 The State's argument-that LaGrand should have raised this plainly futile issue on direct appeal-is a reversal of the legitimate argument we often see in response to a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, that a lawyer need not raise every conceivable claim in order to do an adequate job. As the Court said in Jones v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745, 103 S.Ct. 3308, 77 L.Ed.2d 987 (1983): 25 There can hardly be any question about the importance of having the appellate advocate examine the record with a view to selecting the most promising issues for review.... A brief that raises every colorable issue runs the risk of burying good arguments-those that, in the words of the great advocate John W. Davis, go for the jugular,-in a verbal mound made up of strong and weak contentions. 26 Id. at 752-53, 103 S.Ct. 3308 (quoting Davis, The Argument of an Appeal, 26 ABAJ 895, 897 (1940)). 27 In a legal landscape which was worse than bleak, the claim that lethal gas was unconstitutional was not reasonably available to LaGrand's counsel in the 1980s. Therefore, he has shown cause for not raising this claim prior to his first habeas petition. 28 The question of prejudice is easily resolved. LaGrand is now faced with execution by an allegedly unconstitutional means. This surely qualifies as prejudice, defined as actual harm resulting from the claimed constitutional error. See Magby v. Wawrzaszek, 741 F.2d 240, 244 (9th Cir.1984).