Court Opinion

ID: 9487945
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:30:57.138622+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:34.756548
License: Public Domain

*1363CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting with respect to emergency stay of execution:
Free has requested an emergency stay of execution of his death sentence pending the Supreme Court’s decision scheduled for March 24, 1995 (three days from today) on whether to grant a writ of certiorari in Lackey v. Texas, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 1274, 181 L.Ed.2d 192 (1995). I would grant an emergency stay on the very limited basis requested.
Free has been on death row for fifteen and a half years since his sentence of death was originally imposed. He is scheduled to be executed in the early morning hours of March 22, 1995 (tomorrow). His death sentence was vacated by the district court in 1992 after hearings before a Magistrate Judge. The death penalty was reimposed by this court in 1993.
Free claims that at least six years of his time on death row are not attributable to his own conduct. He further asserts that, including the ten-year period of time he sought post-conviction relief as provided by Illinois law at the time in question, 725 ILCS 5/122-1 et seq., only a small fraction of this tíme on death row is attributable to his conduct. The Illinois Supreme Court set three execution dates for Free prior to the present one.
As Judge Aspen has pointed out, Free’s case seems quite factually distinguishable from that of Lackey — a Texas prisoner likewise held for many years on death row. But the Supreme Court has up to now announced no law governing allegedly excessive death-row delay, exacerbated by the setting of multiple execution dates and similar arguably painful events, as possible violations of the Eighth Amendment.
It seems to me that in light of the exceedingly minimal stay requested and the potentially resounding impact of a grant of certio-rari in the Lackey case, an emergency stay should be granted. A decision in Lackey might create a wholly new dimension in death cases.
Weighing the rather trivial consequences of a grant of an emergency stay against the grave and irrevocable consequences of a denial, the grant of the request of the emergency stay is appropriate. Cf. Pratt & Morgan v. Attorney General of Jamaica, Privy Council Appeal No. 10 of 1993, 3 WLR 995, 143 NLJ 1639, 2 AC 1, 4 All ER 769 (Nov. 2, 1993) (en bane) (“in any case in which the execution is to take place more than five years after sentence there will be strong grounds for believing that the delay is such as to constitute inhuman or degrading or other treatment”); Coleman v. Balkcom, 451 U.S. 949, 952, 101 S.Ct. 2031, 2033, 68 L.Ed.2d 334 (1981) (Stevens, J., concurring in the denial of certiorari); Solesbee v. Balkcom, 339 U.S. 9, 14, 70 S.Ct. 457, 460, 94 L.Ed. 604 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting); Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 288-89, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 2751-52, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972) (Brennan, J., concurring); People v. Anderson, 6 Cal.3d 628, 100 Cal.Rptr. 152, 493 P.2d 880, cert. denied, 406 U.S. 958, 92 S.Ct. 2060, 32 L.Ed.2d 344 (1972); District Attorney for Suffolk District v. Watson, 381 Mass. 648, 411 N.E.2d 1274, 1289-95 (1980).
I would therefore grant an emergency stay pending the decision of the Supreme Court with respect to certiorari in Lackey.