When an inmate's § 1983 challenge to a state's method of execution meets the timeliness and pleading requirements of this Court's decision in Bucklew, is the nature of the relief sought to be determined from the face of the complaint?

QUESTION PRESENTED At first blush, certiorari review would appear warranted here because Stephen Michael West faces the imminent infliction of a cruel and unusual method of execution solely because: (1) Respondents repeatedly stated falsely in their briefing below that Mr. West’s amended 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint seeks a stay of his August 15, 2019 execution; (2) the court of appeals opinion treated their falsehood as the truth; and, (3) solely because it did so, and for no other reason, the court of appeals determined that the Tennessee Supreme Court’s decision in Abdur’Rahman v. Parker, 558 S.W.3d 606 (Tenn. 2018), a declaratory judgment action to which Mr. West was a party, precluded consideration of West’s federal court complaint. It goes without saying that a judgment founded entirely upon what is indisputably untrue which results in a violation of the Eighth Amendment offends the rule of law and brings disrespect: to our nation’s federal courts. This alone could spur the Court to summarily exercise its certiorari jurisdiction (along with its equitable powers) to stay Mr. West’s August 15, 2019 execution, to vacate the decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and to remand this matter with instructions that Mr. West be allowed to pursue his Bucklew-compliant 42 U.S.C. § 1983 challenge to Tennessee’s three-drug midazolam-based lethal injection protocol. There is another explanation for the decision of the court below, one which does not call into question its integrity, yet still calls out for this Court’s attention. That is, that the court of appeals construed the language in Bucklew v. Precythe, 139 S. Ct. 1112 (2019) to stand for the proposition that, § 1983 complaints i challenging a state’s method of execution are, per se, to be treated as attempts to delay the imposition of the sentence of death itself. Because the Sixth Circuit is presumed to have acted with honesty and integrity, see Withrow v. Larkin, 421 U.S. 35, 47 (1975), this latter explanation must be accepted. If such is the case, the court below has drawn a rule from this Court’s decision in Bucklew which not only does not exist, but which also poses an imminent threat to even the most fundamental concepts of due process and endangers the very framework of our judicial system. Rather than such a rule, this Court’s Baze jurisprudence affords the lower courts specific instruction by which they are to determine whether an inmate’s 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action is, in fact, no more than an attempt to delay the imposition of the sentence of death itself. Because a clear understanding of those instructions is critical not only in the application of the res judicata doctrine, but also in the application of the heightened scrutiny set forth at Bucklew v. Precythe, 139 S. Ct. at 1134, the following question is worthy of review: 1. When an inmate’s § 1983 challenge to a state’s method of execution meets the timeliness and pleading requirements of this Court’s decision in Bucklew, is the nature of the relief sought to be determined from the face of the complaint? ii