First Amendment Coalition of Arizona, Inc. v. Ryan

Summary

The court considers defendants’ motion to dismiss a challenge to Arizona’s lethal-injection procedures. The plaintiffs allege that the use of midazolam followed by a paralytic creates an unconstitutional risk of severe pain and that the Department’s discretion and history of deviating from execution protocols violate the Eighth Amendment and procedural due process. The court concludes that the Eighth Amendment claims concerning the drug protocol and significant deviations from execution procedures are plausibly pleaded.

Holdings

1. The inmates plausibly stated an Eighth Amendment method-of-execution claim by alleging that midazolam may fail to maintain unconsciousness, that the subsequent paralytic and potassium chloride would then create a substantial risk of severe pain, and that removing the paralytic or using an available alternative drug would significantly reduce that risk.
2. The inmates plausibly stated an Eighth Amendment claim based on Arizona's alleged pattern of substantial deviations from critical aspects of its announced execution procedures and the Director's asserted authority to make unlimited major deviations.
3. The inmates plausibly stated a procedural due process claim based on allegations that Arizona could make fundamental, last-minute changes to the execution method without meaningful notice or an opportunity to raise Eighth Amendment challenges.
4. The plaintiffs failed to state a First Amendment claim for access to detailed information about execution drugs, drug provenance, drug quantities and effects, execution personnel, protocol development, or other information preceding or surrounding the execution beyond the qualified right to view the execution proceeding recognized by Ninth Circuit precedent.
5. The inmates failed to state a substantive due process claim because use of a paralytic in a lethal-injection protocol was not so arbitrary as to shock the conscience, and the liberty interest in avoiding unwanted medical treatment did not extend to drugs used to carry out a capital sentence.
6. The inmates failed to state a class-of-one equal protection claim because they alleged that Arizona treated inmates generally inconsistently, not that any particular inmate was intentionally treated differently from similarly situated persons without a rational basis.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the complaint plausibly alleged that Protocol C's use of midazolam followed by a paralytic presented a substantial risk of serious pain in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
2. Whether the alleged pattern of substantial deviations from Arizona's execution protocols plausibly stated an Eighth Amendment claim.
3. Whether Arizona's broad discretion to change critical execution procedures and its alleged failure to provide notice of material changes plausibly stated a procedural due process claim.
4. Whether the First Amendment gives inmates or the press a right to observe or obtain detailed information concerning the drugs, drug sources, execution personnel, and effects of Arizona's lethal-injection procedures.
5. Whether use of a paralytic during execution violated substantive due process by arbitrarily invading bodily integrity or shocking the conscience.
6. Whether the alleged disparate treatment of death row inmates stated a class-of-one equal protection claim.
7. Whether the plaintiffs stated an access-to-courts or right-to-petition claim based on alleged concealment of execution information.

Disposition

other