Gray v. Lucas

• Citation: 77 L.Ed.2d 1453,104 S.Ct. 211,463 U.S. 1237
• Decision Date: 01 September 1983
• Docket Number: No. 83-5290,83-5290
• Parties: Jimmy Lee GRAY v. Eddie LUCAS, Warden, et al
• Court: United States Supreme Court

463 U.S. 1237

104 S.Ct. 211

77 L.Ed.2d 1453

Jimmy Lee GRAY

v Eddie LUCAS, Warden, et al

No. 83-5290

Supreme Court of the United States

September 1, 1983

On petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The petition for writ of certiorari is denied.

The application for stay of execution, scheduled for 12:01 a.m. on September 2, 1983, addressed to Justice BRENNAN and referred to the Court is denied.

THE CHIEF JUSTICE, concurring in the denial of the petition for writ of certiorari and in the denial of the application for stay.

On Justice WHITE denied petitioner's application for a stay on August 25, 1983, and the following day, the Mississippi Supreme Court set petitioner's execution for September 2, 1983. Now before the Court is petitioner's petition for certiorari and his reapplication for a stay of execution addressed to Justice BRENNAN, and referred to the Court.

The facts and procedural history have not been referred to in the dissent. Since they are critical, they are set forth as follows: (1) In October 1976, petitioner was indicted for capital murder. At trial, the State proved that on June 25, 1976, petitioner abducted a three-year-old girl, carried her to a remote area, and after sexually molesting her, suffocated her in a muddy ditch and threw her body into a stream. Petitioner was convicted and sentenced to death. (2) On appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the conviction and remanded the case for a new trial. Gray v. State, 351 So.2d 1342 (Miss.1977). (3) On retrial in 1978, Gray was again convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. (4) The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed both the conviction and the death sentence. Gray v. State, 375 So.2d 994 (Miss.1979). (5) We denied petitioner's petitions for certiorari and rehearing. Gray v. Mississippi, 446 U.S. 988, 100 S.Ct. 2975, 64 L.Ed.2d 847, rehearing denied, 448 U.S. 912, 101 S.Ct. 30, 65 L.Ed.2d 1174 (1980).

(6) Petitioner filed his first applications for a writ of error coram nobis and stay of execution before the Mississippi Supreme Court in July 1980. (7) After the state court's summary denial of the writ, petitioner filed a petition for habeas corpus in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. The court conducted an evidentiary hearing with respect to several of Gray's 22 claims of constitutional violation and denied relief. (8) The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed and denied petitioner's motion for rehearing. Gray v. Lucas, 677 F.2d 1086, rehearing denied, 685 F.2d 139 (CA5 1982). (9) A petition for certiorari and rehearing were once again denied by this Court. On May 11, 1983, the Mississippi Supreme Court set the execution date for July 6, 1983.

(10) On June 22, 1983 petitioner submitted to the Mississippi Supreme Court a second motion for stay of execution along with a new application for a writ of error coram nobis. The petition raised, among others, those claims now before this Court. The Mississippi Supreme Court denied all re- quested relief on June 29, 1983. (11) Petitioner thereupon filed his second petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the federal district court, reasserting those claims he had submitted to the Mississippi Supreme Court. (12) On July 2, 1983, the court of appeals granted petitioner's application for a stay of execution. (13) The district court dismissed the petition for habeas corpus on July 8, 1983. (14) The court of appeals affirmed and denied petitioner's petition for rehearing. The stay was dissolved on August 26, 1983.

This case has been in state and federal courts for seven years. It has been tried twice in the state court and reviewed by the Mississippi Supreme Court four times. Seventeen different federal judges have reviewed petitioner's case, and this Court has previously acted on this case four times prior to Justice WHITE's denial of petitioner's application for a stay last week. Over the past seven years, judicial action reviewing this case has been taken 82 times by 26 different state and federal judges.

Petitioner's latest claims have been reviewed by several courts in both the state and federal systems. Petitioner's principal claim, which Justice MARSHALL addresses in his dissent, is that the lethal gas method of execution constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. In my view, no evidentiary hearing on the effects of lethal gas is required. A number of affidavits describing such effects were filed with and considered by the Court of Appeals, and the contents of several of these have been set forth in the dissent today of Justice MARSHALL. For purposes of my vote in this case, I accept the truth of the affidavits submitted by the petitioner, but nevertheless conclude—as did the Court of Appeals that they do not as a matter of law establish an Eighth Amendment violation. I agree with the Court of Appeals that the showing made by petitioner does not justify a court holding "that, as a matter of law or fact, the pain and terror resulting from death by cyanide is so different in degree or nature from that resulting from other traditional modes of execution as to implicate the eighth amendment right." Gray v. Lucas, 710 F.2d 1048, 1061 (CA5 1983).

This case illustrates a recent pattern of calculated efforts to frustrate valid judgments after painstaking judicial review over a number of years; at some point there must be finality. I join the Court's action denying the petition for certiorari and denying a stay of execution.

Justice MARSHALL, with whom Justice BRENNAN joins, dissenting.

In this application for a stay, petitioner requests simply that we postpone his execution long enough to allow us to consider and dispose of his pending petition for certiorari to the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirming the denial of a writ of habeas corpus. Gray v. Lucas, 710 F.2d 1048 (1983). I would grant the application.¹

Petitioner argues that the method by which the state of Mississippi plans to execute him—exposure to cyanide gas constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. In support of that claim, he submitted to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi numerous affidavits that described in graphic and horrifying detail the manner in which death is induced through this procedure.² Gray v Lucas, No. S83-0546(C) (July 8, 1983). For example, Dr. Richard Traystman, Director of the Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine Research Laboratories at Johns Hopkins Medical School, described the process as follows:

"Very simply, cyanide gas blocks the utilization of the oxygen in the body's cells. * * * Gradually, depending on the rate and volume of inspiration, and on the concentration of the cyanide that is inhaled, the person exposed to cyanide gas will become anoxic. This is a condition defined by no oxygen. Death will follow through asphyxiation, when the heart and brain cease to receive oxygen.

"The hypoxic state can continue for several minutes after the cyanide gas is released in the execution chamber. The person exposed to this gas remains conscious for a period of time, in some cases for several minutes, again depending on the rate and volume of the gas that is inhaled. During this time, the person is unquestionably experiencing pain and extreme anxiety. The pain begins immediately, and is felt in the arms, shoulders, back, and chest. The sensation is similar to the pain felt by a person during a heart attack, where essentially, the heart is being deprived of oxygen. The severity of the pain varies directly with the diminishing oxygen reaching the tissues.

"The agitation and anxiety a person experiences in the hypoxic state will stimulate the autonomic nervous system. . . . [The person] . . . may begin to drool, urinate, defecate, or vomit. There will be a muscular con- traction[ ]. These responses can occur both while the person is conscious, or when he becomes unconscious.

"When the anoxia sets in, the brain remains alive for from two to five minutes. The heart will continue to beat for a period of time after that, perhaps five to seven minutes, or longer, though at a very low cardiac output. Death can occur ten to twelve minutes after the gas is released in the chamber." Gray v. Lucas, 710 F.2d at 1060.

Dr. Traystman further testified that the lethal-gas method is sufficiently painful that it is disfavored in the scientific community as a way of putting animals to sleep. "We would not use asphyxiation, by cyanide gas or by any other substance, in our laboratory to kill animals that have been used in experiments—nor would most medical research laboratories in this country use it." Ibid.

Other affiants described in less clinical language the effects of the procedure when used to execute people:

"When the cyanide gas reached [the prisoner], he gasped, and convulsed strenuously. He stiffened. His head lurched back. His eyes widened, and he strained as much as the straps that held him to the chair would allow. He unquestionably appeared to be in pain.

"Periodically now, perhaps at thirty second intervals, he would convulse, alternately straining and relaxing in the chair. I noticed he had urinated. The convulsions continued for approximately ten more minutes, and you could see his chest expand, and then contract, trying to take in fresh air. These movements became weaker as the minutes ticked away. You could not tell when [he] finally lost consciousness.

"According to prison officials, [he] died . . . approximately 12 minutes after the cyanide pellets had dropped in the chamber. Death was pronounced after the shade on our observation window had been drawn, though there was still some slight movement in the body. Id., at 1058-1059.

"The pellets of cyanide were released by mechanical controls, and dropped into an acid jar beneath the chair. The gas rose,...