Court Opinion

ID: 9414326
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-01 23:58:09.15627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:14:42.304297
License: Public Domain

DENNIS, Circuit Judge,
additional dissenting reasons:
Harris did not wait until the eleventh hour to file his claim. Harris has never been given a copy of the protocol by which he will die. Texas does not publish or otherwise disclose its execution protocol for security purposes. Thus, there would have been no better opportunity to obtain the protocol at an earlier date than he has now.
It is unrealistic to require Harris to be concerned with the particular secret protocol that Texas would use until he knew the relevant time period during which the protocol would be used on him. Texas asserts that it has not changed its protocol since it began using the lethal injection method. But how was Harris to know at an earlier date in this case what the secret protocol was or whether the state would change it in the future? Had he filed a § 1983 claim any earlier it likely would have been dismissed as unripe or for lack of standing.