Hill v. Crosby
Hill was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in a Florida state court in 1983. In 2005, after Hill's appeals and habeas petition had failed, Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed Hill’s death warrant, officially setting an execution date. Four days before his execution date, Hill applied to the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit for leave to file a second habeas petition. On the same day, Hill filed a civil rights claim in district court challenging Florida’s imposition of the death penalty under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, arguing that three of the chemicals used for lethal injection–sodium pentathanol, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride–inflict unnecessary pain. The following day, the district court dismissed Hill’s complaint, holding that it lacked jurisdiction over the claim because Hill's action was the functional equivalent of a successive habeas petition and the Eleventh Circuit had not granted him leave to file a successive petition.
On the day scheduled for Hill’s execution, the Eleventh Circuit denied Hill’s application to file a second habeas petition. Additionally, the court upheld the district court’s dismissal of the constitutional challenge for lack of jurisdiction. Hill then filed an application to stay the execution, which Justice Kennedy granted, and the Supreme Court subsequently granted certiorari to hear Hill’s claims.
Questions presented:
1. Whether a complaint brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by a death-sentenced state prisoner, who seeks to stay his execution in order to pursue a challenge
to the chemicals utilized for carrying out the execution, is properly recharacterized as a habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254.
2. Whether, under this Court's decision in Nelson, a challenge to a particular protocol the State plans to use during the execution process constitutes a cognizable claim under 42 U.S.C. §
1983.
