West v. Schofield

• Decision Date: 10 March 2015
• Citation: 460 S.W.3d 113
• Parties: Stephen Michael West, et al. v. Derrick D. Schofield, et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

460 S.W.3d 113

Stephen Michael West, et al.

v.Derrick D. Schofield, et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee, AT NASHVILLE.

December 18, 2014 Session

Filed March 10, 2015

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Andrée S. Blumstein, Solicitor General; and Jennifer L. Smith, Deputy Attorney General, for the appellants, Derrick D. Schofield, Wayne Carpenter, Tony Mays, Jason Woodall, Tony Parker, John Doe Physicians 1–100, John Doe Pharmacists 1–100, John Doe Medical Examiners 1–100, John Doe Medical Personnel 1–100, and John Doe Executioners 1–100.

Stephen M. Kissinger and Susanne Bales, Assistant Federal Community Defenders, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the appellees, Stephen Michael West, Nicholas Todd Sutton, and David Earl Miller.

Kelley J. Henry, Supervisory Assistant Federal Public Defender, and

Michael J. Passino, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Nashville, Tennessee, for the intervening appellees, Abu–Ali Abdur'Rahman, Donald R. Johnson, Donald Wayne Strouth, Charles Walton Wright, and Edmund George Zagorski.

C. Gene Shiles, Jr., and William J. Rieder, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the appellee, Billy Ray Irick.

Kelly A. Gleason and Jonathan King, Assistant Post–Conviction Defenders, Nashville, Tennessee, for the intervening appellee, Lee Hall, Jr.

Opinion

Jeffrey S. Bivins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Cornelia A. Clark and Holly Kirby, JJ., joined. Sharon G. Lee, C.J., concurred in results only. Gary R. Wade, J., filed a separate opinion concurring in the judgment only.

JUDGMENT

PER CURIAM

This interlocutory appeal was heard upon the record from the Court of Appeals, application for permission to appeal having heretofore been granted, and upon the briefs and argument of counsel. Upon consideration thereof, this Court holds that the judgments of the Court of Appeals and the trial court should be reversed.

In accordance with the Opinion filed herein, it is, therefore, ordered and adjudged that the judgment of the Court of Appeals is hereby reversed, and this matter is remanded to the Chancery Court for Davidson County for additional proceedings consistent with this Opinion.

The Chancery Court further is directed to commence the trial in this matter on the claims at issue in this appeal within 120 days from the date of this Judgment. The trial shall conclude within 150 days from the date of this Judgment. Within 30 days of the date upon which the trial concludes, the trial court shall enter its decision in this matter as a final, appealable order as to the claims at issue in this appeal.

It appearing that the plaintiffs in this matter are indigent, the costs of this appeal shall be paid by the State of Tennessee, for which execution may issue if necessary.

OPINION

JEFFREY S. BIVINS, JUSTICE

We granted the State of Tennessee permission to appeal from the Court of Appeals' decision on interlocutory appeal in which the intermediate appellate court affirmed the trial court's order compelling discovery in this declaratory judgment action. The Plaintiffs are seeking a declaration that the lethal injection protocol in place for the execution of convicted criminal defendants sentenced to death is unconstitutional. In conjunction with pursuing their claim, the Plaintiffs sought to discover the identity of persons involved in facilitating and carrying out executions. Over the State's objection, the trial court ordered the State to provide these identities to the Plaintiffs, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's order. Upon due consideration, we reverse and remand this matter for further proceedings consistent with this Opinion and in compliance with the timelines set forth in the judgment order filed contemporaneously with this Opinion.

Factual and Procedural Background

On September 27, 2013, the Tennessee Department of Correction adopted a new lethal injection protocol providing that inmates sentenced to death be executed by the injection of a lethal dose of a single drug, pentobarbital (“the Protocol”). On November 20, 2013, Stephen Michael West, Billy Ray Irick, Nicholas Todd Sutton, and David Earl Miller (“Plaintiffs”), all of whom have been sentenced to the death penalty for committing first degree murder, filed a declaratory judgment action in the Chancery Court for Davidson County, Tennessee, against: Derrick D. Schofield in his official capacity as Tennessee's Commissioner of Correction; Wayne Carpenter, in his official capacity as Warden of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution; Tony Mays, in his official capacity as Deputy Warden of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution; Jason Woodall, in his official capacity as Deputy Commissioner of Operations; Tony Parker, in his official capacity as Assistant Commissioner of Prisons; John Doe Physicians 1–100; John Doe Pharmacists 1–100; John Doe Medical Examiners 1–100; John Doe Medical Personnel 1–100; and John Doe Executioners 1–100 (“Defendants”). Also on November 20, 2013, Edmund Zagorski, Abu–Ali Abdur'Rahman, Charles Wright, and Don Johnson, all condemned inmates, moved to intervene as plaintiffs, and their motion was granted. These intervening plaintiffs filed a complaint for declaratory judgment on November 20, 2013, which they asserted “raises identical issues presented by the original complaint.” On November 21, 2013, Lee Hall, a condemned inmate, moved to intervene as plaintiff, and his motion was granted. Hall filed a complaint for declaratory judgment on November 21, 2013, which he asserted “raises identical issues presented by the original complaint.” On January 2, 2014, Donald Strouth, a condemned inmate, moved to intervene as plaintiff, and his motion was granted. Strouth filed a complaint for declaratory judgment on January 2, 2014, which he asserted “raises identical issues presented by the original complaint.”

The Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on November 25, 2013 (“the Complaint”).¹ The Plaintiffs are seeking declarations that the Protocol violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and article I, section 16 of the Tennessee Constitution. The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 16 of the Tennessee Constitution prohibit the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment. Because capital punishment is constitutional, “[i]t necessarily follows that there must be a means of carrying it out.” Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35, 47, 128 S.Ct. 1520, 170 L.Ed.2d 420 (2008). “[T]he Constitution does not demand the avoidance of all risk of pain in carrying out executions.” Id. Instead, to establish an Eighth Amendment violation, “the conditions presenting the risk must be ‘sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering,’ and give rise to ‘sufficiently imminent dangers.’ ” Id. at 50, 128 S.Ct. 1520 (quoting Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 33, 34–35, 113 S.Ct. 2475, 125 L.Ed.2d 22 (1993) ) (emphases in Baze ). “[T]o prevail on such a claim there must be a ‘substantial risk of serious harm,’ an ‘objectively intolerable risk of harm’ that prevents prison officials from pleading that they were ‘subjectively blameless for purposes of the Eighth Amendment.’ ” Id. (quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 842, 846 and n.9, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994) ).²

Specifically, the Plaintiffs allege that the Protocol: (1) “creates a substantial risk of unnecessary pain when carried out exactly in the manner prescribed”; (2) “will require the use of compounded pentobarbital”; (3) “fails to provide adequate qualifications and training of personnel to minimize the known risks involved in execution by lethal injection”; (4) “fails to require and include, and fails to comport with, those accepted medical practices necessary to minimize the known risks involved in execution by lethal injection”; and (5) “violates federal and state drug laws and the United States and Tennessee Constitutions.” The Complaint also alleges that “Tennessee's secrecy statute, Tennessee Code Annotated [section] 10–7–504(h)(1), violates Plaintiffs' federal and state constitutional rights and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.”

In their prayer for relief, the Plaintiffs also seek declarations that “any attempt by Defendants to carry out Plaintiffs' executions, and/or the carrying out of such executions, using the Lethal Injection Protocol will violate 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ”; that the Protocol is “on its face and as applied to Plaintiffs null and void and/or unconstitutional” under the federal and state constitutions; that the Protocol “causes, requires or constitutes violations of” various state and federal statutes; that the Protocol “is void as contrary to public policy”; and that the Protocol “is void as constituting an unlawful civil conspiracy.”

On November 26, 2013, the Plaintiffs served their First Set of Interrogatories on the named Defendants and the State Attorney General's Office in which the Plaintiffs asked the Defendants to identify each John Doe Defendant³ and, if such Defendant was not employed by the State, to “identify the business address where service of the summons may be had.” During a scheduling conference on December 2, 2013, the Defendants indicated a possible objection to the interrogatories but agreed that a protective order regarding the identities of the John Doe Defendants should be entered “regardless of [the] interrogatory responses.” In their December 4, 2013 written response to the interrogatories, the Defendants objected to each of the Plaintiffs' requests for the identities of the John Doe Defendants, asserting that (1) the identities of the individuals described were neither relevant nor material to the Plaintiffs' ability to challenge the Protocol used in executing a sentence of death and (2) their identities specifically were deemed confidential under Tennessee Code Annotated section 10–7–504(h), and, therefore, exempt from discovery under Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 26.02(1). The Defendants also asserted that the State's interest in maintaining the...