Whether Florida's three-drug lethal injection protocol violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment when applied to a prisoner with specific medical vulnerabilities that create a substantial risk of severe, torturous suffering during execution

No question identified. : substantially injure the other parties interested in the proceeding; and (4) where the public interest lies.” Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009) (internal citation omitted). First, Mr. Walls has made a strong showing that he is likely to succeed on the merits, both as to his appeal of the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling, and as to his substantive as-applied lethal injection claim. Just days before Governor DeSantis signed Mr. Walls’s death warrant, on October 28, 2025, counsel received alarming records showing that, over the course of an unprecedented number of Florida executions in 2025, corrections officials either willfully or negligently deviated from their drug protocol on numerous occasions, including preparing lower dosages of drugs than required, administering expired drugs, and preparing unauthorized drugs altogether. The records were a disturbing addition to an ongoing investigation into Mr. Walls’s particularized risks from Florida’s anomalous three-drug lethal injection protocol. Five months ago, before his death warrant was signed, Mr. Walls had begun to exhibit troubling physical symptoms, prompting counsel to retain a medical expert to examine him. That examination revealed serious deteriorating medical conditions that, when exposed to Respondents’ protocol, will likely result in Mr. Walls suffering a torturous execution akin to drowning as a result of pulmonary edema. When those conditions are considered in the context of the new records, Mr. Walls is at severe risk of unconstitutional suffering. Accordingly, just one week after the Governor signed his death warrant, Mr. Walls promptly raised these concerns in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action in the district court, arguing that he faces “a demonstrated risk of severe pain” that is “substantial when compared to the known and available alternatives.” Glossip v. Gross, 576 U.S. 863, 877-78 (2015). Mr. Walls’s as-applied challenge relied on the confluence of both (1) the execution records; and (2) Mr. Walls’s medical vulnerability. But the district court refused to consider the merits at all, despite recognizing that “Walls has presented evidence demonstrating that he may well suffer a cruel death by experiencing a feeling akin to drowning as a result of pulmonary edema.” NDFL-ECF 22 at 10-11. 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 on the grounds of undue delay in filing his complaint. The Eleventh Circuit upheld the stay denial, agreeing with the undue delay analysis and holding that there was no requirement that any federal court give any consideration to the serious allegations and evidence in Mr. Walls’s complaint. None of the courts below so much as considered the complaint’s likelihood of success on the merits—the key factor for any stay-of-execution motion. Instead they myopically focused on the idea that Mr. Walls simply waited too long to bring suit (though both courts conspicuously failed to specify when suit should have been brought). The undue-delay analysis was factually and legally wrong because the primary component of Mr. Walls’s claim—the execution logs—were uncovered just weeks before his suit was filed. And the Eleventh Circuit also wrongly denied a stay based on undue delay alone, without analyzing any of the stay factors, or allowing a hearing on disputed facts regarding timing, or conducting even a cursory review of Mr. Walls’s substantive claim. This Court’s intervention is warranted. The other stay factors favor Mr. Walls as well. Mr. Walls will suffer an irreparable injury without a stay because he will be executed in a manner that wantonly inflicts pain and suffering, violating the Eighth Amendment. Indeed, as courts have widely suggested, irreparable injury is presumptive under warrant. See, e.g., Wainwright v. Booker, 473 U.S. 935, 937 n.1 (1985) (Pow