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Sixth Circuit splitting over challenges to Ohio's execution protocol

By Douglas A. Berman

Yesterday the Sixth Circuit issued this opinion in Getsy v. Strickland that affirms the dismissal of a death row inmate's challenge to Ohio's lethal injection protocol as time-barred.  Here is part of the discussion from the opinion for the court, per Judge Gilman (with emphasis in the original): So if Baze did not create a new constitutional right, what precisely did Baze accomplish?  The answer, we believe, is that Baze clarified the standards that should apply to the merits of Eighth Amendment protocol challenges. Justice Thomas acknowledged that Baze simply created a new ?formulation of the governing standard? rather than an entirely new right. See Baze, 128 S. Ct. at 1556 (Thomas, J., concurring in the judgment) (emphasis added). This raises the question of whether Baze?s freshly clarified standards trigger a new accrual date...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on August 13, 2009 (boomark / email).