Court Opinion

ID: 9488195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:39:00.072146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:44.743731
License: Public Domain

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge.
Duncan Peder McKenzie has been on death row for two decades. In his third federal habeas petition, he claims inter alia that the state of Montana’s inordinate delay in carrying out his sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, a claim similar to that raised in Texas by Clarence Allen Lackey. See Lackey v. Texas, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 1421, 131 L.Ed.2d 304 (1995) (Stevens, J., respecting the denial of certiorari). We will refer to this claim as the “Lackey claim.”

Background

The protracted procedural history of this case is a matter of public record and need not be reiterated.1 Suffice to say that McKenzie’s second habeas petition, filed July 27, 1985, was finally disposed of in our court on June 24, 1994, and after the customary petition for rehearing, suggestion for rehearing en bane and petition for certiorari were all rejected, the ease was returned to the district court. In February of this year, the district court lifted the stay of execution that had been in place throughout the many years taken up by McKenzie’s collateral attacks in federal court.
The state immediately petitioned the state district court to reschedule McKenzie’s execution.2 It was in opposition to that petition, on March 20th,3 that McKenzie first raised his Lackey claim. The state court rejected this and other challenges, holding that it lacked authority to consider any matter other than setting a new execution date. Montana v. McKenzie, No. 6593A (Mont.Dist.Ct., Eighth Jud.Dist., Mar. 27, 1995) (transcript of proceedings), at 7,13; see Mont.Code Ann. § 46-19-103(l).4 That ruling was affirmed by a divided state Supreme Court, Montana v. McKenzie, — Mont. -, 894 P.2d 289, 292 (1995); the dissenting justice would have remanded for consideration of the Lackey claim, id., 894 P.2d at 293-95 (Leaphart, J., dissenting).
McKenzie then filed this habeas petition in federal district court. In addition to the Lackey claim, McKenzie raised the following claims: (1) that changes made to the Montana capital punishment scheme since his conviction in 1975 violated the ex post facto clause because they took away the state trial court’s discretion to consider new evidence in mitigation of the sentence; (2) that changes in the method of execution, the number of witnesses permitted to attend, and the place and procedure surrounding the execution violated the ex post facto clause because they increased his punishment; (3) that he was denied due process at the hearing on the state’s motion to reset the execution date because he was not given an adequate opportunity to .consult with counsel before being required to choose the method of execution, and because he had not been provided with *1464information (including the identity of his executioner) that he needed to make that decision; (4) that he was denied due process by the state’s failure to consider new evidence in mitigation of his sentence, including evidence that he was not a violent prisoner and no longer posed a threat to society; (5) that he was denied due process by the state’s failure to re-weigh the proportionality of his sentence in light of the subsequent reversal (on grounds of legal error, not insufficiency of the evidence) of the convictions to which his crime had originally been compared; (6) that his execution would amount to cruel, unusual and arbitrary punishment because he will be the first person executed in Montana since 1943 and the only one ever to have been executed under the pre-1977 death penalty statute; and (7) that his death sentence is based on materially inaccurate facts, because changes in Montana law would now allow him to be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, an option not available in 1975 when he was sentenced.
The district court summarily dismissed McKenzie’s third habeas petition as “successive and repetitive” without awaiting the state’s response. McKenzie v. Day, No. CV-95-44-GF (D.Mont. Apr. 20, 1995). We issued a certificate of probable cause and ordered expedited briefing and argument.

Discussion

McKenzie seeks a stay and a remand to the district court for consideration of various claims, including his Lackey claim. In the alternative, McKenzie asks that we simply rule for him on the merits and issue the writ. We consider each of these requests for relief in turn.
A. The Stay
The Supreme Court, in the celebrated case of Robert Alton Harris, held as follows:
Whether his claim is framed as a habeas petition or § 1983 action, Harris seeks an equitable remedy. Equity must take into consideration the State’s strong interest in proceeding with its judgment and Harris’ obvious attempt at manipulation. This claim could have been brought more than a decade ago. There is no good reason for this abusive delay, which has been compounded by last-minute attempts to manipulate the judicial process. A court may consider the last-minute nature of an application to stay execution in deciding whether to grant equitable relief.
Gomez v. United States Dist.Ct. for the N.Dist. of Cal., 503 U.S. 653, 653-54, 112 S.Ct. 1652, 1653, 118 L.Ed.2d 293 (1992) (citations omitted) [hereinafter referred to as “Harris ”]. The Supreme Court took pains to explain that it did not vacate the stay of execution for abuse of the writ, see McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467, 111 S.Ct. 1454, 113 L.Ed.2d 517 (1991): “Even if we were to assume ... that Harris could avoid the application of McCleskey to bar his claim, we would not consider it on the merits.” Harris, 503 U.S. at 653, 112 S.Ct. at 1653. The Court held that Harris was not entitled to the equitable remedy of a stay of execution because of his abusive delay in bringing his claim.5
McKenzie, like Harris, seeks a last-minute stay of execution. And, like Harris, he raises claims that could have been brought much earlier, quite possibly as early as his first6 and second federal habeas petitions. *1465McKenzie raises several issues in his petition and briefs but bases his request for a stay largely on his Lackey claim. While Justice Stevens’ memorandum in Lackey has given prominence to the argument that delay in carrying out a death sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, the legal theory underlying the claim is not new in this circuit, since a similar claim was raised as early as 1960 by Caryl Chessman. Chessman v. Dickson, 275 F.2d 604, 607 (9th Cir.1960). In 1984, this precise claim was raised in the habeas petition of Willie Lee Richmond, and was rejected by this court on the merits in 1990. See Richmond v. Lewis, 948 F.2d 1473 (9th Cir.1990), rev’d on other grounds, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 528, 121 L.Ed.2d 411 (1992), vacated, 986 F.2d 1583 (9th Cir.1993). While the panel in Richmond eventually vacated its opinion, 986 F.2d 1583, rendering its ruling non-binding on us, the fact that the claim was litigated in cases in this circuit shows clearly that the claim was capable of being raised much earlier.7
We recognize that McKenzie’s claim is unlike Harris’ in some respects. For one thing, the Lackey theory had been rejected by this court in 1990 and, while that ruling stood as the law of the circuit, it arguably would have been frivolous to raise it.8 But there was no such bar to litigating the claim before the Richmond panel’s ruling was entered (in December 1990) or after it was vacated (in March 1993). From 1985 to 1994 McKenzie was in the process of litigating his second federal habeas petition, which occasioned not one but two evidentiary hearings in the district court. See McKenzie v. Risley, 915 F.2d 1396, 1397 (9th Cir.1990); McKenzie v. McCormick, 27 F.3d 1415, 1417 (9th Cir.1994). Had McKenzie raised the Lackey claim at any time during that period, it could have been considered on the merits without the need for yet another stay of execution.9
McKenzie’s claim also differs from Harris’ in that McKenzie’s claim did not accrue until substantial time had passed after imposition of the sentence, whereas Harris’ claim — that execution by lethal gas is cruel and unusual punishment — had been available to him ever since he was sentenced. Nevertheless, McKenzie’s Lackey claim did arise long before he first raised it two-and-a-half weeks ago. As McKenzie himself points out, he has been on death row now for two decades. At the time his case was last remanded to the district court in 1990, McKenzie had been on death row for 15 years, almost as long as Lackey himself. When we disposed of McKenzie’s claim in June 1994, he had been on death row for 19 years. The Lackey claim could have been raised and considered at either of those times, or anytime in between, without having to vacate a death warrant.
McKenzie has offered no reason for failing to raise the claim earlier except his counsel’s belief that the claim would not succeed. Yet that did not prevent a similar claim by Richmond in 1984, see 948 F.2d at 1491-92, or by Lackey himself. Harris again provides important guidance. Harris’ claim that execution by lethal gas is cruel and unusual had *1466been considered and firmly rejected by the Fifth Circuit in 1983, prompting a dissent from the denial of certiorari from Justice Marshall. See Gray v. Lucas, 710 F.2d 1048 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 463 U.S. 1237, 1240, 104 S.Ct. 211, 213, 77 L.Ed.2d 1453 (1983) (Marshall, J., dissenting from the denial of certiorari). And Harris’ reason for bringing his claim late was in other respects much more compelling than McKenzie’s: The then-recent execution by lethal gas of Donald Harding by the state of Arizona, and that state’s change in the method of execution prompted by that experience, provided a new factual basis for the claim that death by gassing was cruel and unusual. See Fierro v. Gomez, 865 F.Supp. 1387, 1407-08 (N.D.Cal.1994).10
While likelihood of success on the merits did not enter into the Supreme Court’s equitable calculus in Harris, we nevertheless deem it prudent to give McKenzie’s Lackey claim preliminary consideration because a very strong showing of likelihood of success on the merits might, in rare circumstances, outweigh abusive delay in raising the claim.11 Our consideration of the merits starts with the opinion of our colleagues in the Richmond case which, though not binding, is nonetheless highly persuasive:
A defendant must not be penalized for pursuing his constitutional rights, but he also should not be able to benefit from the ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of those rights. It would indeed be a mockery of justice if the delay incurred during the prosecution of claims that fail on the merits could itself accrue into a substantive claim to the very relief that had been sought and properly denied in the first place. If that were the law, death-row inmates would be able to avoid their sentences simply by delaying proceedings beyond some threshold amount of time, while other death-row inmates — less successful in their attempts to delay — would be forced to face their sentences. Such differential treatment would be far more “arbitrary and unfair” and “cruel and unusual” than the current system of fulfilling .sentences when the last in the line of appeals fails on the merits. We thus decline to recognize Richmond’s lengthy incarceration on death row during the pendency of his appeals as substantively and independently violative of the Constitution.
948 F.2d at 1491-92.
McKenzie cites various authorities to the contrary, perhaps the most powerful of which is the ruling of the Privy Council in Pratt & Morgan v. Attorney General for Jamaica, 3 SLR 995, 2 AC 1, 4 All ER 769 (Privy Council 1993) (en banc) (delay of 14 years before carrying out an execution violated section 17(1) of the Jamaican Constitution). See also Catholic Comm’n for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe v. Attorney General, No. S.C. 73 (Zimb. June 24, 1993) (delays of two, three and five years coupled with unusually harsh conditions of incarceration); Soering v. United Kingdom, 11 Eur.Hum.Rgts.Rep. 439 (1989) (delay in execution of death sentences in the United States constitutes inhuman and degrading punishment such that extradition is not warranted); Riley v. Attorney General of Jamaica, 1 AC 719, 734, 3 All ER 469, 478 (Privy Council 1983) (Lord Scarman, dissenting). With all due respect to our colleagues abroad, we do not believe this view will prevail in the United States.
We are not confronted with a situation where the State of Montana has set up a scheme to prolong the period of incarceration, or rescheduled the execution repeatedly in order to torture McKenzie. The delay has been caused by the fact that McKenzie has *1467availed himself of procedures our law provides to ensure that executions are carried out only in appropriate circumstances. That this differs from the practice at common law, where executions could be carried out on the dawn following the pronouncement of sentence, see Pratt & Morgan, advance copy at 2, is a consequence of our evolving standards of decency, which prompt us to provide death row inmates with ample opportunities to contest their convictions and sentences. Indeed, most of these procedural safeguards have been imposed by the Supreme Court in recognition of the fact that the common law practice of imposing swift and certain executions could result in arbitrariness and error in carrying out the death penalty. See Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976); Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972). We cannot conclude that delays caused by satisfying the Eighth Amendment themselves violate it.12
We are also mindful that sustaining McKenzie’s claim would dramatically alter the calculus in granting stays of execution in the hundreds of death penalty cases now pending before the state and federal courts. By and large, courts have erred on the side of caution in granting stays of execution sought by death row inmates. While the resulting delay may undermine the state’s interest in carrying out its sentence expeditiously, see In re Blodgett, 502 U.S. 236, 112 S.Ct. 674, 116 L.Ed.2d 669 (1992), death row inmates have generally been successful in arguing that stays of execution should be freely granted because the state’s interest in carrying out its sentence will not be permanently impaired. This argument would lose much of its force in a regime where the state risks being pushed permanently out of bounds if the execution is too long deferred by the process of adjudication. By and large, the delay in carrying out death sentences has been of benefit to death row inmates, allowing them to extend their lives, obtain commutation or reversal of their sentences or, in rare cases, secure complete exoneration.13 Sustaining a claim such as McKenzie’s would, we fear, wreak havoc with the orderly administration of the death penalty in this country by placing a substantial premium on speed rather than accuracy.
Finally, it is unclear to us whether, even if it were held that delay in the imposition of the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, commutation of the death penalty will turn out to be the appropriate remedy. Unlike the claim raised by Harris, for example, which dealt with cruelty in the method of a future execution, whatever anguish McKenzie has suffered is in the past and cannot be undone. Vacating the death sentence would punish the state and perhaps speed up the rate of future executions, but it would not reheve McKenzie and those in his position of the pain they have already suffered. When prisoners complain about the conditions in prison, we do not commute their sentence; we order the conditions ameliorated. If inordinate delay in carrying out an execution is adjudged to be a problem of constitutional dimension, there may be other remedies that are more appropriate in addressing the harm done.
Based on these considerations, we conclude that it is highly unlikely that McKenzie’s Lackey claim would be successful if litigated to its conclusion. This factor therefore does not outweigh the strong presumption against granting a stay created by our determination that McKenzie’s delay in raising the claim on the eve of his execution is abusive.14 McKenzie nevertheless argues *1468that we have an obligation to enter a stay because the Supreme Court recently entered a stay in Lackey to allow the district court in that case to consider whether inordinate delay in carrying out the sentence of death constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Lackey v. Scott, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 1818, 131 L.Ed.2d 741 (1995). McKenzie argues that the Supreme Court’s stay in Lackey is a signal that the inferior federal courts must enter stays of execution in all cases raising colorable Lackey claims.
We have carefully examined the Supreme Court’s order in Lackey in light of the procedural history of that case, and we do not read it so broadly. To begin with, Lackey is a case where the district court exercised its discretion by entering a stay, which was then lifted by the Fifth Circuit.15 By reinstating the stay in Lackey, the Supreme Court was arguably deferring to the discretion of the initial decision-maker in that ease, which was the district court. More importantly, the question of manipulative delay so prominent in Harris was not at issue in Lackey. Lackey had raised his claim of inordinate delay in his first federal habeas petition, a fact carefully considered by the district court in determining whether to issue the stay. Lackey v. Scott, 885 F.Supp. 958, 965-66 (W.D.Tex.1995). Finally, we read the Supreme Court’s laconic stay in Lackey as an indication that the justices wish to see the matter explored in cases where it is properly raised, not as a ruling that stays must be entered in all cases raising Lackey claims in disregard of all other equitable considerations. Harris, again, provides useful guidance: Although the constitutionality of execution by lethal gas was being seriously considered by the district court, see Fierro, 865 F.Supp. at 1389-90, Harris’ execution was allowed to go forward because equitable considerations weighed so heavily against any further delay in carrying out his sentence.16 Without more explicit guidance, we cannot conclude that the Supreme Court intends to halt virtually all executions in this country for the many months, perhaps years, it will take for the issue to be fully explored and resolved.17 '
As the Supreme Court has directed, we “consider the last-minute nature of an application to stay execution in deciding whether to grant equitable relief’ and weigh heavily “the State’s strong interest in proceeding with its judgment.” Harris, 503 U.S. at 654, 112 S.Ct. at 1653. McKenzie could and should have raised his Lackey claim at a time when it was capable of being resolved without staying a scheduled execution.18 When *1469considered in light of what we see as a low probability of ultimate success on the merits of McKenzie’s Lackey claim, we find no basis for exercising our equitable discretion in issuing a stay.
Nor are we able to issue a stay based on any of McKenzie’s other claims. Each of those claims also could and should have been raised at a much earlier time. In any event, each is either patently without merit or fails to state a federal claim under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). McKenzie’s claim that the state violated his rights under the ex post facto clause by changing the place and procedures applicable to his execution is precluded by Holden v. Minnesota, 137 U.S. 483, 491, 11 S.Ct. 143, 146, 34 L.Ed. 734 (1890), which stands for the proposition that such matters are “regulations that do not affect [the prisoner’s] substantial rights.” McKenzie’s claim that he was denied due process of law because the state did not disclose the identity of the executioner and gave him insufficient time and information to make a reasoned selection of the method of execution is similarly without merit. The state has broad discretion to determine the procedures for conducting an execution; we are aware of no authority for the proposition that a prisoner is entitled, for example, to have a lethal injection administered by a physician. Montana’s procedures are reasonably calculated to ensure a swift, painless death and are therefore immune from constitutional attack. See Campbell v. Wood, 18 F.3d 662, 687 (9th Cir.1994) (“The risk of accident cannot and need not be eliminated from the execution process in order to survive constitutional review.”).
The only other of McKenzie’s claims that deserves more than cursory discussion is that the state improperly changed its death penalty law to remove the authority of the court scheduling an execution to also reconsider the sentence. A removal of discretion to mitigate a sentence can, under the law of this circuit, violate the ex post facto clause. See United States v. Paskow, 11 F.3d 873, 877 (9th Cir.1993). McKenzie has, however, pointed to no authority in Montana law supporting his claim that trial courts there ever had that authority. Indeed, McKenzie’s execution was rescheduled a number of times before Montana amended its death penalty statute and there is no evidence that he could have sought mitigation of his sentence at any of these proceedings. McKenzie’s claim that the state courts had authority to reconsider a death sentence when rescheduling an execution rests entirely on his interpretation of former section 95-2303 of the Montana Code, which reads as follows:
In pronouncing the sentence of death, the court shall set the date of execution which must not be less than 30 days nor more than 60 days from the date the sentenced is pronounced.
Rev.Code Mont. § 95-2303 (1947), amended and recodified at Mont.Code Ann. § 46-19-103.
As we read this section, however, it imposes an obligation to set a date of execution at the time the sentence is pronounced, not vice versa. McKenzie offers no opinion of the Montana courts, or any other authority for that matter, in support of his counterintuitive interpretation.19 Absent guidance from the *1470state courts suggesting that section 2803 ought not be read according to its plain meaning, we conclude that it did not confer upon the state trial court any authority to reconsider the death sentence once it had been pronounced. Cf. State v. Hanners, 254 Mont. 524, 839 P.2d 1267, 1268 (1992) (trial courts do not have the authority to reconsider a sentence once it has been pronounced absent specific statutory authorization).20 The 1981 amendment and recodifieation of section 2303 pursuant to which McKenzie’s execution was rescheduled thus did not remove the discretion of the sentencing authority and does not violate the ex post facto clause.
B. The Merits
McKenzie argues, in the alternative, that we should bypass the equitable considerations applicable to issuance of a stay and simply issue the writ based on his Lackey claim. According to McKenzie, the inordinate delay in carrying out the sentence of death, regardless of any other factor, conclusively establishes that he has suffered cruel and unusual punishment. As we noted above, however, we are skeptical of the merits of the Lackey claim, see pp. 1465-68, supra, not to mention his other claims, see pp. 1469-70, supra. We are all the more reluctant, therefore, to grant the equivalent of summary judgment on McKenzie’s claim.21 In essence, McKenzie asks us to grant on the merits the very claim that the Supreme Court ordered to be examined in Lackey, a claim which, as Justice Stevens explained in his memorandum, is highly fact-intensive. We decline to do so.

Conclusion

McKenzie’s motion for a stay of execution of the sentence of death and his alternative motion for summary issuance of the writ on his Lackey claim are denied.

. See State v. McKenzie, 171 Mont. 278, 557 P.2d 1023 (1976), vacated, McKenzie v. Montana, 433 U.S. 905, 97 S.Ct. 2968, 53 L.Ed.2d 1089 (1977), on remand State v. McKenzie, 177 Mont. 280, 581 P.2d 1205 (1978), vacated, McKenzie v. Montana, 443 U.S. 903, 99 S.Ct. 3094, 61 L.Ed.2d 871 (1979), on remand State v. McKenzie, 186 Mont. 481, 608 P.2d 428 cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1050, 101 S.Ct. 626, 66 L.Ed.2d 507 (1980), post-conviction relief denied, McKenzie v. Osborne, 195 Mont. 26, 640 P.2d 368 (1981), petition for writ of habeas corpus denied, McKenzie v. Risley, 801 F.2d 1519 (9th Cir.1986), reh'g granted, McKenzie v. Risley, 815 F.2d 1323 (9th Cir.1987), vacated in part, McKenzie v. Risley, 842 F.2d 1525 (9th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 901, 109 S.Ct. 250, 102 L.Ed.2d 239 (1988), remand for evidentiary hearing on second petition for writ of habeas corpus, McKenzie v. Risley, 915 F.2d 1396 (9th Cir.1990), second petition for writ of habeas corpus denied, McKenzie v. McCormick, 27 F.3d 1415 (9th Cir.1994), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 916, 130 L.Ed.2d 797 (1995).

. The state filed its motion on January 24, 1995, before the federal stay of execution had been lifted.

. McKenzie initially objected to the state’s motion for a hearing to reschedule his execution on January 26, 1995, but he did not at that time raise his Lackey claim; instead, he argued that the motion was premature (because the federal stay was still in effect), and that it was brought under a statute that was not in effect at the time of his crime.

. At this hearing, the court also exercised its authority under state law to allow McKenzie to choose the method of his execution. See Mont. Code Ann. § 46-19-103(3). McKenzie chose lethal injection rather than hanging.

. The dissent misses the crucial distinction between McCleskey and Harris. McCleskey applies to all successive habeas petitions, regardless of whether they are brought on the eve of execution, indeed regardless of whether they seek relief from a death sentence at all. McCleskey therefore covers far broader territory than Harris, which applies only to last-ditch efforts to obtain a stay of execution. The dissent also argues we are finding facts on appeal by holding that McKenzie’s delay in bringing his claims was abusive. Not so. We are doing precisely what the Supreme Court did — and what it held other federal courts must do — in ruling on a last-minute request for a stay of execution. We seriously doubt the Supreme Court appointed a special master in Harris to take evidence about the reasonableness of the delay in that case.

. The dissent points out that McKenzie could not have raised his Lackey claim in 1981, when he filed his first habeas petition. This is true, but McKenzie could have moved to amend his first petition to add that claim at any time prior to August 1985, when the petition was finally resolved by the district court. See Fetterly v. Paskett, 997 F.2d 1295, 1296-97 (9th Cir.1993).

. The state notes that McKenzie's lawyer throughout the federal habeas proceedings was Timothy K. Ford, who was also Richmond's lawyer at the time he raised the claim of inordinate delay. We draw no inference from this fact, other than that both McKenzie and Richmond have been exceptionally well represented. McKenzie should not be prejudiced by the fact that it was his lawyer who litigated this issue on behalf of another client. What we find disposi-tive is that the claim was available to a lawyer of reasonable competence litigating death penalty cases in this circuit.

. We say "arguably” because so long as the claim was not finally addressed by the Supreme Court, a death row inmate would have been well within his rights in raising the issue to preserve it for Supreme Court review.

. McKenzie's second habeas petition was brought on the limited grounds that an ex parte meeting between the judge and prosecutor in his case rendered his sentence unconstitutional under the rule announced in Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 97 S.Ct. 1197, 51 L.Ed.2d 393 (1977). McKenzie nevertheless also challenged the application of the 1983 amendments to the death penalty statute as a bill of attainder. There is no reason McKenzie could not also have raised his Lackey claim and his various challenges to the ex post facto application of the 1981 and 1983 amendments to Montana's death penalty statute in this petition. He could also have brought his third federal habeas petition much earlier.

. The dissent would have us hold that Harris does not apply because McKenzie had no "positive authority” for his claim until Justice Stevens published his memorandum in Lackey. See dissent at 1475. Given the state of the law concerning the constitutionality of execution by gassing prior to 1990, this hardly distinguishes Harris.

. A different analysis altogether would apply if a petitioner were to make a strong showing of actual innocence on the eve of his execution. McKenzie, of course, makes no claim of actual innocence. Nor does he claim trial error of any sort; this renders inapposite Sawyer v. Whitley, - U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 2514, 120 L.Ed.2d 269 (1992), which requires a showing "by clear and convincing evidence that but for the constitutional error, no reasonable jury would find him eligible for the death penalty.” Id. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2523.

. In this we are reminded of the following quote from Deutscher v. Whitley, 991 F.2d 605 (9th Cir.1993):
We recognize that one who is sentenced to death need not have excessive review before the penalty is carried out, but the constitutional mandate of adequate review requires strict adherence. To provide less renders the death penalty cruel and unusual.
Id. at 607 (citations omitted) (emphasis in original).

. We note that of the 5000 or so people sentenced to death since Furman, some 1700 have obtained some form of relief from the death penalty. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Capital Punishment 1993, at 12.

. In Harris, the district court entered a stay of execution based on its determination that petitioner had made a substantial showing that execution by gas would, indeed, constitute cruel and unusual punishment. See Gomez v. United States *1468Dist.Ct. for the N.Dist. of Cal., No. 92-70237, 1992 WL 155238, at *1 (9th Cir.1992). In lifting the stay, the Supreme Court held that it was an abuse of discretion for the district court to have issued a stay in the face of Harris’ abusive delay. We cannot conclude that it is improper for us to deny a stay in circumstances very similar to those where the Supreme Court held it was an abuse of discretion to enter one.

. We note that the grounds on which the Fifth Circuit lifted the stay are of questionable merit. See Lackey v. Scott, 52 F.3d 98, 100 (5th Cir.1995). The Fifth Circuit in Lackey held that the claim was Teague barred because it was a novel claim first raised by a petitioner on collateral review. See Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989). But a claim like McKenzie and Lackey's cannot normally be raised on direct appeal because much of the delay complained of arises' in post-conviction proceedings.

. The dissent argues it is unfair to let Lackey litigate his claim to fruition while executing McKenzie. This, it seems to us, is no more unfair than executing Harris while allowing Gomez and others similarly situated to litigate the question of whether execution by lethal gas is unnecessarily cruel. Indeed, at least two other prisoners have been executed recently even though they raised potentially meritorious Lackey claims on the eve of their executions. See Free v. Peters, 50 F.3d 1362 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 1397, 131 L.Ed.2d 247 (1995); Williams v. Chrans, 50 F.3d 1363 (7th Cir.1995).

. We say "virtually all executions" based on our experience that inmates on death row facing imminent execution normally have spent many years awaiting their fate.

. The dissent argues that Harris was an extraordinary case, one where the abuse was so patently obvious that reasonable minds could not disagree that Harris was trying to manipulate the system. In fact, Harris was not all that different from a lot of cases we see; reasonable minds in fact did disagree as to whether Harris’ motion for a. stay was abusive. See Stephen Reinhardt, The Supreme Court, the Death Penalty, and the Harris Case, 102 Yale L.J. 205, 207 (1993) (noting that the district judge who entered the first stay in Harris "behaved in a conscientious and orderly *1469manner that all other judges ... would do well to emulate”); John T. Noonan, Should State Executions Run on Schedule?, New York Times, Apr. 27, 1992, at A15 (suggesting that lifting the stay in Harris amounted to "treason to the Constitution”). Indeed, ten judges of this court were sufficiently convinced that Harris' claim was not frivolous they issued a stay only hours before the scheduled execution. Reinhardt, The Supreme Court, supra, at 210-11. Even after the Supreme Court issued its Harris decision one of our colleagues thought it appropriate to enter a further stay. See Charles Fried, Impudence, 1992 Sup.Ct.Rev. 155, 189. The simple fact is that Harris’ case was no more extraordinary than McKenzie's.

. The only authority we have that is directly on point is the Montana Supreme Court’s most recent opinion in this case. After first noting that the trial court did not “resentence” McKenzie under the new statute, the Montana Supreme Court further remarked that "McKenzie was 'sentenced' and the death penally was 'imposed' on March 3, 1975; that sentence has never been vacated by any court.” Montana v. McKenzie, 894 P.2d at 292. Notably, the Montana Supreme Court does not state that McKenzie was "resen-tenced” on any of the seven occasions on which his execution was rescheduled between 1975 and 1982.

. In reaching this conclusion, we are aware of the distinction between the pronouncement of a judgment which includes a sentence of death and the issuance of a death warrant. The latter is merely a ministerial, nondiscretionary act carried out in furtherance of the former. Montana v. McKenzie, 894 P.2d at 291; Nebraska v. Joubert, 246 Neb. 287, 518 N.W.2d 887, 891 (1994). The setting of an execution date through the issuance of a death warrant is within the inherent power of the court to enforce its own judgments, Joubert, 518 N.W.2d at 894, and we are aware of no capital punishment scheme where the court is required to resentence the defendant in order to reschedule the execution.

. In commenting on the merits of McKenzie’s claim, we do not minimize in any way the anguish that is suffered by death row inmates who repeatedly face the near-certain probability of death. A number of death row inmates have refused to avail themselves of avenues of review precisely to avoid this ordeal. See, e.g., Demosthenes v. Baal, 495 U.S. 731, 110 S.Ct. 2223, 109 L.Ed.2d 762 (1990) (per curiam); Gilmore v. Utah, 429 U.S. 1012, 97 S.Ct. 436, 50 L.Ed.2d 632 (1976); Washington v. Dodd, 120 Wash.2d 1, 838 P.2d 86 (1992). This option is available to anyone sentenced to die, and to the extent petitioners choose to delay execution in the hope of obtaining relief, that is a choice they make for themselves.