PRESS RELEASE

Release Date:  April 24, 2006

Contact:  Michael Rushford
(916) 446-0345

Oral argument in Hill v. McDonough set for Wednesday, April 26

The United States Supreme Court will hear oral argument Wednesday to consider a Florida murderer’s civil rights lawsuit claiming that the state’s lethal injection protocol violates the Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.  In the case of Hill v. McDonough, the question before the Court is whether the defendant, Clarence Hill, is entitled to review of the claim as a civil rights suit, filed five years after the state changed its method of execution.  Method of execution claims have been raised on habeas corpus since 1890, but in 1996 Congress placed a one-year statute of limitations on habeas.

“It is well established that the proper means for defendants to challenge their sentences is through federal habeas corpus,” said Kent Scheidegger, Legal Director of the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.  “Hill’s failure to follow the rules governing that process should not be rewarded by the opportunity to delay his well-deserved execution with a last-minute challenge in the form of a civil rights lawsuit,” he added.  Scheidegger has submitted a amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in the case to encourage a decision announcing that Hill’s claim is defaulted.

Hill’s case is before the Supreme Court after 23 years of review.  In 1983, he was convicted on irrefutable evidence of the intentional murder of police officer Stephen Taylor.  The crime began on October 19, 1982, when Hill and accomplice Cliff Jackson stole a pistol and an automobile in Mobile, Alabama.  The pair drove the car to Pensacola, Florida and robbed a savings and loan.  As they were making their escape, the police arrived.  Jackson ran out the front door and was immediately arrested.  Hill fled through the back door and approached the two officers from behind as they were handcuffing Jackson.  Hill shot both officers at close range, killing one and wounding the other.  After a jury found him guilty of the murder and several related crimes, he was sentence to death.

In 1985, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction but overturned the death sentence because of a disputed juror challenge.  In 1987, after his second penalty trial resulted in a death sentence, the Florida Supreme Court upheld it on appeal.  Hill’s claims on state habeas corpus were later denied, but a problem at the second penalty trial discovered by a federal district judge required a third review by the Florida Supreme Court which again upheld the sentence in 1994.  Six years later the Federal Court of Appeals denied Hill’s claims, and the U. S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.  In 2000, Florida adopted lethal injection as the primary execution method, and a short time later the state Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge to it in another death penalty case.  While between 2000 and 2005, Hill argued and lost another habeas corpus challenge before the Florida Supreme Court, he did not take his opportunity to attack the state’s lethal injection process.  In late 2005, Hill’s execution was finally scheduled, but before the sentence could be carried out, he challenged his lethal injection on state habeas corpus.  The challenge was denied by both the state circuit court and the state supreme court for violating limits on last-minute claims.  On January 20, 2006, Hill asked the federal court of appeals for leave to file another habeas corpus petition, claiming that he was mentally retarded.  The request was rejected four days later for violating rules limiting successive petitions. Also on January 20, Hill filed a civil rights suit in Federal District Court attacking the lethal injection process.  The Court determined that the suit was equivalent to a successive habeas corpus petition and rejected it on January 21 for violating the rules.  On January 24, shortly after the federal appeals court affirmed that holding, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy granted a stay of Hill’s execution.  On January 25, the United States Supreme Court agreed to review Hill’s claim that he was entitled to challenge Florida’s lethal injection process with a civil rights lawsuit, after forgoing the opportunity to raise the challenge in a timely manner on federal habeas corpus.

The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation has joined this case to argue that a decision allowing a defendant to challenge his sentence in a civil rights lawsuit would circumvent the federal habeas corpus process, which has been designed to provide an orderly means for review of a defendant’s claims against his conviction and sentence.  The Foundation cites several acts of Congress and Supreme Court decisions which support a decision to deny review of Hill’s claim and narrow future opportunities for defendants to force additional delay of their sentences by raising last minute claims in a civil rights lawsuit.

“This case is an example of why Congress enacted requirements that defendants present their claims in a timely manner,” said Scheidegger.  “This case has already gone on for too long.  Further delays should not be allowed over an issue that has nothing to do with guilt or innocence and could have been raised years ago.”