Court Opinion

ID: 9694952
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:01:38.095761+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:16:01.666146
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11040    Document: 43-1      Date Filed: 08/25/2023   Page: 1 of 11

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-11040
                           ____________________

        RICHARD L SEALEY,
                                                     Petitioner-Appellant,
        versus
        WARDEN, GEORGIA DIAGNOSTIC PRISON,

                                                   Respondent-Appellee.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Georgia
                     D.C. Docket No. 1:14-cv-00285-MLB
                           ____________________

        Before JORDAN, JILL PRYOR, and NEWSOM, Circuit Judges.
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11040

        PER CURIAM:
                Condemned Georgia inmate Richard Sealey moved the dis-
        trict court to reopen his federal habeas proceedings following our
        decision in Nance v. Comm’r, Ga. Dep’t of Corr., 981 F.3d 1201 (11th
        Cir. 2020), in which we held that certain execution-related claims
        should be pursued in habeas corpus proceedings rather than in civil
        suits brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court denied his
        motion, and, not long thereafter, the Supreme Court reversed our
        decision in Nance. See Nance v. Ward, 142 S. Ct. 2214 (2022). We
        AFFIRM the district court’s denial.
                                           I
               A Georgia jury convicted Sealey of malice murder on the
        ground that he tortured a woman with a hot ﬁreplace poker and
        then killed her and her husband with an axe. Sealey v. Warden, Ga.
        Diagnostic Prison, 954 F.3d 1338, 1344–45 (11th Cir. 2020). After
        Sealey unsuccessfully pursued appellate and state post-conviction
        remedies, he ﬁled a federal habeas corpus petition. Id. at 1349–53.
        The district court denied his petition and, in 2020, we aﬃrmed that
        denial. Id. at 1344–45. As relevant here, the district court con-
        cluded in the course of that litigation that Sealey’s challenges to his
        execution by lethal injection were not cognizable in habeas and that
        if he intended to pursue them, he would have to do so through a
        suit ﬁled under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Doc. 66 at 100–01. In particular,
        the court stated that it understood Sealey’s petition to challenge the
        constitutionality of Georgia’s speciﬁc “lethal injection proce-
        dures,” an allegation that it held belonged in § 1983 under our then-
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        22-11040                Opinion of the Court                          3

        governing precedent. Id. (citing Tompkins v. Secretary, Dep’t of Corr.,
        577 F.3d 1257, 1261 (11th Cir. 2009)) (“A § 1983 lawsuit, not a habeas
        proceeding, is the proper way to challenge lethal injection proce-
        dures.”). We didn’t review that aspect of the district court’s deci-
        sion because the certiﬁcate of appealability didn’t cover it.
               In 2021, Sealey moved the district court to reopen his federal
        habeas proceedings on the ground, he said, that new circuit prece-
        dent—in particular, our then-recent decision in Nance, 981 F.3d
        1201—rendered his lethal-injection claim cognizable in habeas.
        The condemned inmate in Nance had argued that his unique medi-
        cal condition would make his execution by lethal injection cruel
        and unusual, and he proposed the ﬁring squad as an alternative
        means of carrying out his death sentence. Nance, 981 F.3d at 1203.
        The complication, we observed in our decision, was that lethal in-
        jection was the only method of execution authorized by Georgia
        law. Id. at 1210. We held that because Nance’s challenge, if suc-
        cessful, would deprive Georgia of the ability to execute him under
        existing law, it “necessarily impl[ied] the invalidity of his death sen-
        tence” and thus belonged in habeas. Id. at 1210–11 (citing, e.g., Heck
        v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994)).
               The district court denied Sealey’s motion to reopen. It con-
        cluded that our decision in Nance didn’t move Sealey’s claim from
        the § 1983 to the habeas bucket because he “did not raise a method-
        of-execution challenge that, if successful, would prevent his execu-
        tion by lethal injection in any form.” Doc. 92 at 4.
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        4                        Opinion of the Court                       22-11040

                 Not long after the district court denied Sealey’s motion, the
        Supreme Court reversed our decision in Nance. See 142 S. Ct. 2214.
        In so doing, the Court held that even if Nance’s proposed alterna-
        tive method of execution “necessitate[d] a change in state law,” his
        claim nonetheless sounded in § 1983 because his “requested relief
        still places his execution in Georgia’s control”—the state, the Court
        held, could simply change its law. Id. at 2223. Nance’s challenge
        therefore did not “necessarily imply the invalidity” of his sentence.
        Id. at 2222 (quoting Heck, 512 U.S. at 487).
               Sealey then moved the district court to set aside its order in
        light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Nance and to reopen his
        habeas proceedings or, in the alternative, to amend its certiﬁcate of
        appealability to include the question whether his execution-related
        claim was cognizable in habeas. 1 The district court denied the mo-
        tion to set aside its order but issued a new COA that included
        Sealey’s cognizability argument.
                                             II
               At the outset, we hold that Sealey’s “motion to reopen”—
        which he predicated on a contention that the underlying law gov-
        erning the cognizability of certain execution-related claims in ha-
        beas had changed—is properly understood as a Rule 60(b) motion
        to set aside the district court’s earlier judgment. See Fed. R. Civ. P.
        60(b) (providing circumstances in which a court “may relieve a
        party or its legal representative from a ﬁnal judgment, order, or

        1 The district court had already issued a COA on other arguments.
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        22-11040                    Opinion of the Court                                  5

        proceeding”).2 That tees up a second issue: Was Sealey’s motion a
        an unauthorized—and thus forbidden—“second or successive” ha-
        beas corpus petition? 3
                Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Gonzalez v. Crosby, a
        Rule 60(b) motion is tantamount to a successive habeas petition
        only if, as relevant here, it attacks a previous court’s resolution of a
        claim “on the merits.” 545 U.S. 524, 532 (2005) (emphasis in original).
        Accordingly, the question for us is whether, in concluding that the
        type of execution-related claim that Sealey seeks to pursue is not
        “cognizable” in habeas—but rather only under 42 U.S.C. § 1983—
        the district court adjudicated that claim “on the merits.” We con-
        clude that it did not.
                The Gonzalez Court recognized that “[t]he term ‘on the mer-
        its’ has multiple usages,” but it clariﬁed that in the habeas context

        2 Sealey contends that his motion is not a Rule 60(b) motion but, rather, is

        merely a “continuation” of his “first [habeas] application.” Reply Br. of Appel-
        lant at 3 n.3. But the cases he cites for support apply only in limited circum-
        stances that don’t exist here. See, e.g., Martinez-Villareal v. Stewart, 523 U.S.
        637, 642 (1998) (allowing a petitioner who raised an unripe claim under Ford
        v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986), in his first federal habeas petition to bring
        the claim after ripening without seeking leave to file a second habeas petition);
        Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 947 (2007) (extending Martinez-Villareal to
        Ford claims that weren’t initially raised in the first petition); Slack v. McDaniel,
        529 U.S. 473, 485–87 (2000) (allowing a habeas petitioner to bring claims that
        were dismissed for failure to exhaust state remedies without seeking leave to
        file a second petition provided that he had exhausted the claims in the interim).
        3 We review de novo whether a petition for a writ of habeas corpus is second

        or successive. Osbourne v. Secretary, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 968 F.3d 1261, 1264 (11th
        Cir. 2020).
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11040

        the controlling question is whether the district court’s original
        judgment constituted “a determination that there exist or do not
        exist grounds entitling a petitioner to habeas corpus relief under 28
        U.S.C. § 2254(a) and (d).” Id. at 532 n.4. “When,” the Court con-
        tinued, “a movant asserts one of those grounds (or asserts that a
        previous ruling regarding one of those grounds was in error) he is
        making a habeas corpus claim.” Id. The “grounds” speciﬁed in
        § 2254(a) and (d), in turn, pertain to the substance of the underly-
        ing law that governs the propriety of the inmate’s conviction or
        sentence—that is, whether either “violat[es] the Constitution or
        laws or treaties of the United States,” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a), or rests
        on a state-court decision that “was contrary to, or involved an un-
        reasonable application of clearly established Federal law, as deter-
        mined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” or “was based
        on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evi-
        dence presented in the State court proceeding,” id. § 2254(d)(1)–(2).
        See also Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 533 (observing that a Rule 60(b)
        needn’t be “treated like a habeas corpus application” if “neither the
        motion itself nor the federal judgment from which it seeks relief
        addresses federal grounds for setting aside the movant’s state con-
        viction”); id. at 538 (holding that a Rule 60(b) petition “is not to be
        treated as a successive habeas petition if it does not assert, or reas-
        sert, claims of error in the movant’s state conviction”).
               The district court’s conclusion here that the type of claim that
        Sealey seeks to litigate isn’t “cognizable” in habeas, but must in-
        stead be pursued under § 1983, is diﬀerent from a determination
        that Sealey’s particular claim fails “on the merits,” as that phrase is
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        22-11040                   Opinion of the Court                                  7

        used in this context. Cf. also Amodeo v. FCC Coleman-Low Warden,
        984 F.3d 992, 1002–03 (11th Cir. 2021) (distinguishing between a
        claim’s “merit” and “cognizability”); Restatement (First) of Judg-
        ments § 49 cmt. a (“[W]here there is a judgment for the defendant
        on the ground that the plaintiﬀ sued in the wrong form of action,
        the judgment is not on the merits.”).4
                In sum, we hold that Sealey’s 60(b) motion was not a succes-
        sive habeas petition because it didn’t attack a prior judgment “on
        the merits.” We needn’t opine on “cognizability” holdings gener-
        ally; all that matters in the particular circumstances of this case is
        that the district court’s determination that Sealey’s claim wasn’t

        4 The state’s own “analogy” confirms as much:         “[S]uppose,” the state says,
        “that a petitioner asserts a habeas claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, but
        nowhere even so much as alleges that his counsel’s deficiency prejudices him.
        When the district court denies that claim, it is ‘on the merits’ because the pe-
        titioner simply failed to assert a viable habeas claim—there would ‘not exist
        grounds entitling a petitioner to habeas corpus relief.’” Br. of Appellee at 22–
        23 (quoting Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 532 n.4). True, but that is not, as the state
        says, “identical to what happened here.” Id. at 23. In the state’s hypo, the
        petitioner’s challenge warranted dismissal because he failed to allege a neces-
        sary element of his underlying Sixth Amendment claim—namely, that his law-
        yer’s deficient performance prejudiced his defense. See Strickland v. Washing-
        ton, 466 U.S. 668, 694 (1984). The court’s dismissal of that claim would thus
        absolutely be “on the merits.” But again, the situation here is different: The
        district court didn’t address the substance or particulars of Sealey’s underlying
        Eighth Amendment claim—its elements, their application to Sealey’s case, etc.
        Rather, it determined, as an antecedent matter, that Sealey wasn’t entitled to
        pursue his claim in habeas at all, whatever its merits.
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11040

        cognizable in habeas wasn’t a judgment “on the merits” in the way
        that Gonzalez used that phrase.
                                          III
               We review a district court’s denial of a Rule 60(b) motion for
        abuse of discretion. Howell v. Secretary, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 730 F.3d
        1257, 1260 (11th Cir. 2013). We hold that the district court did not
        err—let alone abuse its discretion—in holding that Sealey’s partic-
        ular claim sounds in § 1983 rather than in habeas.
               Without deﬁnitively determining the precise scope of the
        Supreme Court’s decision in Nance, it’s fair to say that it leaves ha-
        beas a fairly circumscribed role in execution-related challenges. To
        be sure, an inmate claiming that, for whatever reason, the state may
        not constitutionally execute him at all—say, because capital punish-
        ment is per se unconstitutional, because there is no known valid
        method of execution (which perhaps amounts to the same thing),
        or because he is categorically ineligible for the death penalty—may,
        and perhaps must, proceed in habeas. And we can even assume,
        for the sake of argument, that a frontal challenge to a particular
        method of execution—for instance, that lethal injection in any
        form is unconstitutional—may proceed in habeas.
               But—and this is dispositive—fairly read, that’s not the sort of
        challenge that Sealey has alleged. He certainly hasn’t claimed that
        the state may not execute him by any means. Nor, we think, has
        he contended that lethal injection itself is unconstitutional. Rather,
        his petition and supporting brief are, as the district court
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        22-11040                Opinion of the Court                          9

        concluded, most reasonably understood to challenge only Geor-
        gia’s particular lethal-injection protocols and procedures.
                 In his habeas petition, for instance, Sealey argued that
        “Georgia’s protocols and procedures for executing prisoners by lethal
        injection are inconsistent with the evolving standards of decency
        . . . .” Doc. 1 at 137 (emphasis added); see also id. at 138 (“protocols
        and procedures”); 14o (“protocols and procedures”); 141 (“proto-
        cols and procedures”). In particular, Sealey challenged “the legality
        of the method [by which Georgia] obtain[ed] lethal injections
        drugs,” id. at 138, alleged that the state had “illegally imported” and
        “illegally obtained” its lethal-injection drugs, id. at 138–39, com-
        plained that the state had “abruptly altered its lethal injection pro-
        cedures,” id. at 138, charged that the state wasn’t using “FDA-
        approved” drugs in executions, id. at 139, asserted that the state had
        resorted to using a “compounding pharmacy” to manufacture its
        lethal-injection drugs, id., and complained that the state had made
        “the nature and origin of [its] lethal injection drugs a ‘conﬁdential
        state secret,’” id. at 139 (quoting O.C.G.A. § 42-5-36(d)).
                Sealey’s brief in support of his habeas petition sounded the
        same “protocols and procedures” themes. E.g., Doc. 47 at 242. For
        instance, he assailed Georgia’s “adoption of a protocol that relies
        upon drugs of unknown origin, and its decision to cloak both the
        source of its drugs and the qualiﬁcations of the personnel charged
        with carrying out executions . . . .” Id. at 240–41. Echoing his pe-
        tition, he likewise complained that the state had “no FDA-approved
        supply” of lethal-injection drugs, id. at 241, that it was using a
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        10                        Opinion of the Court                     22-11040

        “compounding pharmacy” to make them, id. at 242, that the drugs
        were “anonymously-produced,” id., that it hadn’t “establish[ed]
        minimum qualiﬁcations required of the personnel performing” ex-
        ecution procedures, id., and that it had classiﬁed the origins of the
        drugs and the qualiﬁcations of state personnel a “conﬁdential state
        secret,” id. See also generally id. at 251 (“Compounded Pentobarbital
        Presents a Risk of Harm”); id. at 253 (“Unqualiﬁed Personnel Pre-
        sent a Risk of Harm”); id. at 258 (“Georgia Is Carrying Out Execu-
        tions with Illegally-Obtained Drugs”); id. (“Pentobarbital Can Only
        Be Compounded Pursuant to a Valid Prescription”); id. at 264
        (“Georgia Obtained Its Lethal Injection Drugs Through a Fraudu-
        lent Prescription”); id. at 271 (“Georgia’s Combination of Secrecy,
        Ineptitude and Illegality in Its Administration of Executions by Le-
        thal Injection Violates Petitioners[’] Constitutional Rights”).
               In the face of all that, Sealey points principally to his peti-
        tion’s prayer for relief: “Petitioner prays that this Court . . . [i]ssue
        a writ of habeas corpus to have Petitioner brought before it so that
        he may be . . . relieved of his unconstitutional sentence of death.”
        Doc. 1 at 143. That, we think, is simply too thin a reed. That single
        sentence cannot fairly be divorced from the larger context of the
        petition and supporting brief, both of which, as the district court
        correctly concluded, focus on the more granular aspects of Geor-
        gia’s particular (and current) lethal-injection protocol.5

        5 The same is true of the bolded subheading in Sealey’s petition, which states

        that “PETITIONER CANNOT BE SUBJECTED TO LETHAL INJECTION
        BECAUSE TO DO SO WOULD BE CRUEL AND UNUSUAL
        PUNISHMENT IN VIOLATION OF PETITIONER’S RIGHTS UNDER THE
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        22-11040                 Opinion of the Court                           11

               In sum, we hold that the district court did not err in conclud-
        ing that Sealey’s particular challenges to Georgia’s lethal-injection
        “protocols and procedures” sound in § 1983—and are not cogniza-
        ble in habeas—because they do not challenge the validity of his
        conviction or sentence.
                                       IV
               For the forgoing reasons, the district court’s denial of
        Sealey’s motion to reopen is AFFIRMED.

        FIFTH, SIXTH, EIGHTH AND FOURTEENTH AMENDMENTS.” Doc. 1
        at 137. The substance of Sealey’s argument belies the heading’s categorical
        framing.