Court Opinion

ID: 9494485
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:38:41.02669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:26.025782
License: Public Domain

*584SUHRHE INRICH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting from the refusal to vacate the panel’s stay and dissenting from the order extending the stay.
I write in dissent of the so-called en banc court’s decision to grant a thirty-day stay of execution. I do not quarrel that any federal judge could grant a stay. See 28 U.S.C. § 2251. My problem is with the “procedure” used in this case.
A thirty-day stay was granted without anyone from the Court asking me, a member of the panel, for my opinion, let alone my vote. This vote was not an en banc procedure but was done in secrecy by some of the active members of the Court. The vote was taken orally by telephone and not by written response to a petition as is the custom of this Court. There was no motion or formal request for me to reply to. If any of the Judges voting had bothered to read my opinion, they would know that there is a serious question as to whether this decision can even be reviewed by an en banc court. They also would know that Byrd’s attorneys had this affidavit since 1989. Byrd was under an order by this Court in 1994 to raise and divulge any claim he might have. After oral argument and before the decision was made on the first habeas petition, Byrd had eighteen months to ask for leave to amend his petition. Byrd’s attorney reported to a newspaper that he was holding back on the so-called “actual innocence” affidavit. Yet Byrd waited almost one year after our decision was filed, and, at the eleventh hour, filed this second habeas petition.1 It may be that Byrd’s attorney should be censured, but in the end, this attorney has “had his way” with this Court.
As I understand the facts, a few select active judges were called by telephone for their vote and other active judges were not. In fact, as of this date,.there is not any formal written confirmation or identification of who voted. There was no discussion as to the views and opinions of the minority' of the Court members. This Court should be governed by the Rule of Law, and proper procedures are part of that concept. I write this dissent in the hope that something like this never happens again, in this Court or in any other court.

. I should add that Byrd engaged in the same deceitful behavior in state court. As the state trial court judge noted on May 25, 2001, Byrd withheld the 1989 affidavit "even though Byrd had a motion for a new trial pending at that time.” State v. Byrd, No. B-831662(A) (Hamilton C.P. May 25, 2001).