Whether the Eleventh Circuit erred in denying review of a death row inmate's method-of-execution challenge based solely on undue delay, despite newly surfaced records revealing negligent lethal injection protocol administration

Just 21 days before Governor DeSantis signed Mr. Walls’s death warrant, on October 28, 2025, records surfaced implicating Florida’s execution process during the last year of eighteen record -setting, breakneck -speed executions. Those records revealed that, over the course of the year, execution officials in Florida increasingly shunned their own lethal injection protocol, instead barreling forward through executions while preparing lower dosages of drugs than required, administering expired drugs, and preparing unauthorized drugs altogether. Th ese records raised grave concerns that Mr. Walls, who is already medically vulnerable and had been diagnosed four months earlier with conditions known to cause complications with lethal injection, could suffer a torturous death in violation of the Eighth A mendment. One week after his death warrant was signed, Mr. Walls filed an as -applied methodof-execution suit requesting an injunction under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Mr. Walls proffered the recently discovered execution records, combined with the findings regardi ng his medical conditions as the basis for his challenge . The district court refused to review the substance of Mr. Walls’s claims or his evidentiary proffer, or even hold a hearing on his complaint’s request for a preliminary injunction. The district court conceded that “Walls has presented evidence demonstrating that he may well suffer a cruel death by experiencing a feeling akin to drowning.” NDFL -ECF 22 at 1011. But without analyzing any of the four established factors for a stay or injunction, including the likelihood of success on the merits, the district court summarily denied Mr. Walls a stay of execution solely ii on the grounds of undue delay. The Eleventh Circuit upheld the stay denial , holding that there was no requirement that any federal court give any consideration to the serious allegations and evidence in Mr. Walls’s complaint. The question s presented are: 1. Whether the Eleventh Circuit erred in denying Mr. Walls review, based solely on undue delay, despite the primary basis for his challenge —records reflecting Florida’s negligent administration of its lethal injection protocol —not surfacing until 21 days before his death warrant was signed. 2. Whether the recent disclosure of consistent and consequential maladministration of the lethal injection protocol, which still employs a paralytic as the second drug, combined with a severe decline in Mr. Walls’s cardio -pulmonary health, requires scrutiny by the federal courts , particularly where Florida state officials refuse to pause executions or conduct any review of such maladministration’s implications for the Eighth Amendment. iii LIST OF DIRECTLY