Court Opinion

ID: 9494486
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:38:41.030346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:26.026348
License: Public Domain

DISSENT
BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting from the order extending the stay of execution, in which SILER, Circuit Judge, joins.
The order granting the stay of execution until October 8, 2001, states “A majority of the active judges have voted to extend the stay of execution ...” It does not say that the request for this stay was referred to all of the active judges of the court. In fact, no such request was referred to me at any time. Rather, the request — which apparently came not from the petitioner but from Judge Jones — was referred only to those members of the court who could be counted upon to vote in favor of the stay.
As best I am able to determine, one judge of this court orally ordered this stay to be entered, stating that it represented the votes of a majority of the court. There was never any written request for a stay. There was no written vote. In short, there is no record of the cabal that resulted in this stay.
*585There is no room for argument about whether all of the judges in active service are members of the en banc court. They are. See 28 U.S.C. § 46(c). In this circuit, however, only some of those judges are permitted to have notice of requests made to the en banc court and to vote on those requests.
I write in dissent from this purported order because I was given no opportunity to vote on the request for the stay, and I will not be party to either the procedure that produced it or the precedent that some of the members of this court are attempting to set.