Court Opinion

ID: 9494483
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:38:41.021345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:26.024539
License: Public Domain

BOGGS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting, in which
SUHRHEINRICH and BATCHELDER, JJ., join.
I add to my previous dissent, because any false impressions that a reader might take from other opinions on the public record should not stand uncorrected.
A voting ballot was issued to the nine active members of the court on Monday on my request to vacate the stay originally granted by the panel. That ballot said that votes could be cast at any time up until 2 P.M., Tuesday, September 11. At that point Byrd’s execution was firmly stayed until September 18.
So far, so good, at least procedurally.
Monday night,1 with the time for voting not having run, with only one formal vote (no) having been received in the Clerk’s office (and 2 additional no notes and 3 yes votes still to be received Tuesday morning), the Clerk was informed verbally, by an Article III Judge, purporting to speak for the Chief Judge, that he should enter an order immediately the next morning, without any prior notice to the rest of the court, that would:
1) Deny the motion to vacate the stay, on which the time for voting had not expired, and on which no majority of negative votes had been received. [This was procedurally virtually criminal, as the only notice to the court indicated that each judge would have until 2 P.M. to vote (and, by practice, to change his or her vote, within the stated time) ];
2) Enter an order extending the stay for 30 days, based on an alleged agreement from unnamed judges to a proposition without stated procedural basis, which had never, before or after, been reduced to writing, nor had or have its supporters yet been identified nor reduced to writing, nor had the proposition or its support been made available to many (perhaps all) members of the court; and *5833) Enter an order directing prospectively the filing and circulating of an as-yet unreceived document purporting to be an en banc petition, in a circumstance where it is extremely dubious that such a petition is permissible. In fact, unanimous direct precedent of this court en banc, (see In re King, 190 F.3d 479 (6th Cir.1999) (en banc)), and statutory authority, are specific that the petition would be an impermissible attempt to obtain en banc consideration of a matter that is not within the jurisdiction of the en banc court.
Again, this order was to be entered on the word of an Article III judge, purporting to speak for the Chief Judge, with the support of unnamed judges, whose support has never yet been memorialized in writing, upon a proposition never put before the other members of the court or reduced to writing.
Members of the court may indeed act in an informal manner in recording their opinions upon stated matters, in situations of extreme time pressure. There was no such pressure, and there was no stated matter. It is simply a lie to say that “the exigencies of the circumstances required the prompt entry of the Order to preserve the status quo.” The status quo was preserved until September 18. It is also inaccurate to infer from the words “[ijnstead ... a majority favored extending the stay” that each of those majority members acted subsequent to the request for a vote on vacating the stay. I am reliably informed that one or more judges whose approval was represented for the longer stay gave such approval before there had been either any action by the panel or the request for a vote on vacating the stay.
Finally, my information is that the “Clerk of Courts” had received NO communication from individual active members of the court as to the longer stay. What “individual communication with the Chief Judge” may have occurred is a matter which the Chief Judge has yet to communicate to me, the court generally, or to the Clerk.
This type of secret undocumented decision-making by exclusive in-groups is the way decisions are made in totalitarian countries, not usually in the United States. It is necessary, though highly painful, for me to place on the public record the way in which this purported order was issued, and to dissent from that process, far beyond my dissent from the underlying and fundamental lack of legal support for the order.

. I emphasize in the strongest terms that the issuance of the court's order had NOTHING to do with the tragic events of Tuesday morning. The order to file the opinion had been given Monday night. Whatever judges supported that order at that time could not have, in the words of Judge Jones, "felt, in this emergency situation, a reasonable extension to October 8th was in order.” Nor could they have believed, in his words, that "Petitioner faced death within thirty-six hours” since a slay was in place for more than a week from that time.