Abdur'Rahman v. Bredsen, No. M2003-01767-COA-R3-CV (TN 10/6/2004)
| Decision Date | 06 October 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. M2003-01767-COA-R3-CV.,M2003-01767-COA-R3-CV. |
| Parties | ABU-ALI ABDUR'RAHMAN v. PHIL BREDESEN, ET AL. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Appeal from the Chancery Court for Davidson County; No. 02-2236-III; Ellen Hobbs Lyle, Chancellor.
Judgment of the Chancery Court Affirmed.
Bradley A. MacLean, Nashville, Tennessee, and William P. Redick, Jr., Whites Creek, Tennessee, for the appellant, Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman.
Paul G. Summers, Attorney General and Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; and Stephanie R. Reevers, Associate Deputy Attorney General, for the appellees, Phil Bredesen, Quenton White, Ricky Bell, Virginia Lewis, and Tennessee Department of Correction.
OPINION
This appeal involves a challenge to the Tennessee Department of Correction's three-drug lethal injection protocol. A prisoner awaiting execution filed suit in the Chancery Court for Davidson County asserting that the procedure used to adopt the protocol was legally flawed, that the protocol violated various licensing and regulatory requirements, and that the protocol itself violates the prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishments in Tenn. Const. art. I, § 16 and U. S. Const. amend. VIII. The trial court granted the State's motion to dismiss the challenges to the adoption of the protocol and the protocol's compliance with regulatory requirements. Following a hearing, the trial court filed a memorandum and order concluding that the Department's lethal injection protocol does not result in cruel and unusual punishment. The prisoner has appealed. We affirm the trial court's conclusion that the adoption of the protocol was consistent with state law and that the protocol's method of lethal injection does not violate either Tenn. Const. art. I, § 16 or U.S. Const. amend. VIII.
Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman (formerly James Lee Jones) has a long history of violent, anti-social behavior. In February 1986, while he was on parole, Mr. Abdur'Rahman and Devalle Miller entered the duplex of Patrick Daniels and Norma Norman under the pretext of making a drug purchase. They bound their victims with duct tape about their hands, feet, eyes, and mouths. After taking Mr. Daniels's bank card, $300 of Ms. Norman's money, and some marijuana found in a sofa, Mr. Abdur'Rahman told Mr. Daniels that he was going to teach him a lesson and then stabbed him six times in the chest with a butcher knife while Mr. Daniels pleaded for his life. Mr. Abdur'Rahman also stabbed Ms. Norman several times in the back, and then he and Mr. Miller fled, leaving the knife in Ms. Norman's back. Mr. Daniels died as a result of his wounds, but Ms. Norman survived.
In July 1986, a Davidson County grand jury indicted Mr. Abdur'Rahman for first degree murder, assault with intent to commit first degree murder, and armed robbery.1 In 1987, a jury found Mr. Abdur'Rahman guilty of all three offenses and sentenced him to death for the murder conviction and consecutive life sentences for the two remaining convictions. The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the convictions,2 and the United States Supreme Court denied Mr. Abdur'Rahman's petition for writ of certiorari.3 The Criminal Court for Davidson County thereafter denied Mr. Abdur'Rahman's petition for post-conviction relief. The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the decision,4 and both the Tennessee Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court declined to review the case.5
The Criminal Court for Davidson County set Mr. Abdur'Rahman's execution date for June 10, 1996. On April 23, 1996, Mr. Abdur'Rahman triggered what has proved to be protracted proceedings in federal court by filing a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.6 In April 1998, the District Court concluded that Mr. Abdur'Rahman had received ineffective assistance of counsel at the sentencing phase of his 1987 trial and vacated Mr. Abdur'Rahman's death sentence.7 A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed this decision two years later,8 and the United States Supreme Court declined to review the case.9
Immediately after the United States Supreme Court declined to consider his case, Mr. Abdur'Rahman returned to the Sixth Circuit and the District Court seeking relief on the ground of prosecutorial misconduct. Based on an intervening United States Supreme Court decision10 and the Tennessee Supreme Court's adoption of Tenn. S. Ct. R. 39, he requested the Sixth Circuit to vacate its judgment and remand the case to the District Court. He also filed a Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion in the District Court seeking relief from the judgment. In late 2001, the District Court declined to consider the motion and transferred it to the Sixth Circuit.11
On January 15, 2002, the Tennessee Supreme Court set April 10, 2002 as the date for Mr. Abdur'Rahman's execution.12 On March 26, 2002, Mr. Abdur'Rahman was presented with the statutorily mandated choice between methods of execution and declined to make a choice. By operation of law, lethal injection became the method for carrying out Mr. Abdur'Rahman's execution.13 On April 3, 2002, Mr. Abdur'Rahman requested the Commissioner of Correction to issue a declaratory order pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-5-223 (1998) regarding the "constitutionality, legality and applicability" of the Department of Correction's lethal injection protocol.14
Thereafter, the Sixth Circuit issued two summary orders declining to grant the requested relief and denying all of Mr. Abdur'Rahman's pending motions because his Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion amounted to a second or successive petition for writ of habeas corpus. Mr. Abdur'Rahman filed another petition for writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. On April 8, 2002, the Court stayed Mr. Abdur'Rahman's execution,15 and on April 22, 2002, granted certiorari to consider two issues regarding the consideration of federal habeas corpus petitions.16
On May 28, 2002, the Commissioner of Correction denied Mr. Abdur'Rahman's request for a declaratory order regarding the lethal injection protocol. On July 26, 2002, Mr. Abdur'Rahman filed a Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-5-225 (1998) petition in the Chancery Court for Davidson County challenging the Tennessee Department of Correction's lethal injection protocol. He asserted that the procedure used to adopt the protocol violated the Uniform Administrative Procedures Act and the open meetings law.17 He also asserted that the protocol involved the unlawful practice of medicine and that it was contrary to the Nonlivestock Animal Human Death Act.18 Finally, he asserted that the protocol violated public policy and the prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishments in Tenn. Const. art. I, § 16 and U.S. Const. amend. VIII. The State filed an answer denying Mr. Abdur'Rahman's constitutional claims and moved to dismiss his remaining claims on the ground that they failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
There was a hiatus in the state proceeding while the parties turned their attention to the proceedings in the United States Supreme Court. The Court heard oral arguments on November 6, 2002. However, on December 10, 2002, the Court filed a per curiam order dismissing the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted.19 After the case was returned to the Sixth Circuit, a majority of the court decided to rehear the case en banc. Accordingly, the court vacated its earlier judgment and granted Mr. Abdur'Rahman another stay of execution pending its consideration of the case. The case remains pending in the Sixth Circuit.
On March 28, 2003, Mr. Abdur'Rahman filed what proved to be an unsuccessful petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Circuit Court for Davidson County.20 On May 6, 2003, the chancery court granted the State's motion to dismiss all the counts of Mr. Abdur'Rahman's Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-5-225 petition except for his constitutional claims. Following a bench trial on May 29, 2003, the chancery court filed a memorandum and order on June 2, 2003 concluding that the lethal injection protocol did not violate Article I, § 16 of the Tennessee Constitution and the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Mr. Abdur'Rahman appeals both from the order granting the State's motion to dismiss and from the memorandum and order upholding the constitutionality of the lethal injection protocol.
The Tennessee General Assembly authorized executions by lethal injection beginning in May 1998.21 Unlike other state legislatures that provided specific directions regarding the lethal injection procedure, the Tennessee General Assembly left it entirely to the Department of Correction "to promulgate necessary rules and regulations to facilitate the implementation" of execution by lethal injection. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-23-114(c). In June 1998, the Commissioner of Correction assembled a Lethal Injection Project Team. The team consisted of six employees of the Department, including the warden of the facility in which executions are carried out. None of these persons had medical training. The team obtained information from other states that had authorized and carried out executions by lethal injection and conducted on-site visits in Texas and Indiana.
The team identified the drugs most commonly used by other states to carry out executions by lethal injections. In July 1998, the team sought recommendations from the Department's Director of Health Services regarding the combination of drugs that should be used in Tennessee. The director responded that Sodium Pentothal,22 pancuronium bromide ("Pavulon"),23 and potassium chloride24 "are apparently...
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