Opinion ID: 1820223
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: all writs petition

Text: Diaz has also filed a petition under the Court's constitutional all writs authority, in which he claims that section 27.702, Florida Statute (2006), is unconstitutional both facially and as applied in his case. We find no merit to this claim. Section 27.702 specifies the duties of Capital Collateral Regional Counsel in representing individuals convicted and sentenced to death in Florida in collateral actions challenging the legality of the judgment and sentence imposed. Id. § 27.702(1). Pursuant to the statute, CCRC attorneys shall file only those postconviction or collateral actions authorized by statute. This Court has held that the postconviction or collateral actions authorized by statute do not include civil rights actions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. State ex rel. Butterworth v. Kenny, 714 So.2d 404, 410 (Fla.1998). Diaz contends that his due process rights have been violated because his CCRC attorneys cannot file a section 1983 action in federal court to challenge Florida's lethal injection procedures and lethal injection as a method of execution. Diaz further alleges that he has no other avenue available to bring such a federal challenge in light of the holding in Hill v. McDonough, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 2096, 165 L.Ed.2d 44 (2006). We conclude that Diaz has misinterpreted the Hill decision. In Hill, the defendant filed a federal action under section 1983 to challenge the lethal injection procedure as cruel and unusual punishment. The federal district court and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals both denied Hill's claim, holding that his section 1983 claim was the functional equivalent of a habeas petition. Because Hill had sought federal habeas relief earlier, his section 1983 action was deemed successive and thus procedurally barred. Hill, 126 S.Ct. at 2097. However, the United States Supreme Court reversed and held that a challenge to the constitutionality of the lethal injection procedure did not have to be brought in a habeas petition, but could proceed under section 1983. Id. at 2098. However, contrary to Diaz's assertions here, the United States Supreme Court did not hold that a constitutional challenge to lethal injection procedures could not be brought under a habeas petition. Accordingly, Diaz did have an alternative avenue for challenging the lethal injection procedure in federal court, but did not utilize it. In 1999, Diaz filed a federal habeas petition in federal district court. The petition was pending until January 2004. On January 14, 2000, section 922.105 was amended to provide for lethal injection as the method of execution in Florida. See ch. 2000-2, § 3, at 4, Laws of Fla. Also, while his federal habeas petition was pending, Diaz filed two habeas petitions in this Court. See Diaz v. Moore, 828 So.2d 385 (Fla.2001); [9] Diaz v. Crosby, 869 So.2d 538 (Fla.2003). [10] Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, an application for a writ of habeas corpus in a federal court may be granted if the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the state courts. Thus, had Diaz raised a lethal injection claim in either of his two state habeas petitions that were filed after lethal injection was adopted as the method of execution in Florida, he could have then raised the claim in his initial federal habeas petition that was pending from 1999 until 2004. However, Diaz did not utilize this avenue that was available to him. Thus, it was due to his own lack of diligence that he missed the opportunity to challenge execution by lethal injection in a federal habeas action. Accordingly, we find no violation of Diaz's due process rights and no basis for striking down section 27.702 as unconstitutional. We deny Diaz's petition for all writs relief.