Court Opinion

ID: 9483891
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:34:35.870515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:53.879867
License: Public Domain

LAY, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I would grant the stay in order to allow this court to more fully explore the claims involved. Although this is a new motion to stay, it is made in good faith and with sufficient grounds that allege exculpatory material had been withheld by the state. The claim relates directly to the issue of “actual innocence” of the death penalty itself. Mr. Bolder asserts by an affidavit of a medical assistant that surgical procedures constituting malpractice by prison physicians were the direct cause of death. There is no question that petitioner’s conduct was a contributive probable cause of the death, and as such, Mr. Bolder cannot claim actual innocence of liability. The district court so found. However, if Mr. Bolder’s allegations are true and the jury was prevented from having knowledge that a prison doctor’s faulty surgical procedure actually caused the death, then I believe that Mr. Bolder has established actual innocence as relates to the death penalty itself. Under such circumstance I think the claim would meet the test of Sawyer v. Whitley, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 2514, 2525, 120 L.Ed.2d 269 (1992), which states actual innocence of the death penalty is established when “no reasonable juror would have found the petitioner eligible for the death penalty under” applicable state law.