execution-method

15 cases — ← All topics

Case Title Lower Court Docketed Status Flags Tags Question Presented
25-5928 Anthony Boyd v. John Q. Hamm, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, et al. Eleventh Circuit 2025-10-21 Denied IFP comparative-analysis cruel-and-unusual-punishment death-penalty eighth-amendment execution-method nitrogen-hypoxia Whether a comparative analysis of execution methods should focus solely on pre-stimulus psychological pain, and whether Alabama's nitrogen hypoxia pro…
25A457 Anthony Boyd v. John Q. Hamm, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, et al. Eleventh Circuit 2025-10-21 Denied asphyxiation cruel-and-unusual eighth-amendment execution-method nitrogen-hypoxia preliminary-injunction Whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits execution by nitrogen hypoxia that causes prolonged conscious suffering and asphyxiation when a less painful al…
25-5261 Byron Black v. Frank Strada, Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Corrections, et al. Tennessee 2025-08-01 Denied IFP cruel-and-unusual-punishment due-process eighth-amendment execution-method injunctive-relief medical-procedure Whether a state government violates the Eighth Amendment by proceeding with an execution using a cardiac defibrillator that will cause severe pain whe…
24-6778 Jessie Hoffman v. Gary Westcott, Secretary, Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, et al. Fifth Circuit 2025-03-16 Dismissed IFP cruel-and-unusual-punishment eighth-amendment execution-method nitrogen-gassing religious-freedom rluipa Whether a method of execution that superadds psychological suffering violates the Eighth Amendment's bar on cruel and unusual punishment; Whether exec…
24-6709 Brad Keith Sigmon v. South Carolina South Carolina 2025-03-05 Denied IFP death-penalty due-process execution-method lethal-injection prisoner-rights statutory-right Does South Carolina's compressed timeline and arbitrary denial of information necessary for a condemned prisoner to exercise his statutory right 'neve…
24-5993 Carey Grayson v. John Q. Hamm, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, et al. Eleventh Circuit 2024-11-19 Denied IFP conscious-suffocation cruel-and-unusual-punishment eighth-amendment execution-method nitrogen-hypoxia superadded-terror Does the Eighth Amendment prohibit a method of execution involving conscious suffocation or superadded terror?
23A688 Kenneth Eugene Smith v. John Q. Hamm, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, et al. Eleventh Circuit 2024-01-25 Denied cruel-and-unusual eighth-amendment equal-protection execution-method fourteenth-amendment nitrogen-hypoxia Whether the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit a state from executing an inmate using an untested nitrogen hypoxia method that poses a substant…
23A316 Jedidiah Isaac Murphy v. Texas Texas 2023-10-10 Denied cruel-and-unusual-punishment drug-safety due-process eighth-amendment execution-method lethal-injection Whether the Eighth Amendment and state-created liberty interests prohibit executing a prisoner with lethal injection drugs that were exposed to extrem…
21-6055 Willie B. Smith, III v. Jefferson S. Dunn, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, et al. Eleventh Circuit 2021-10-21 Denied IFP accommodation ada ada-accommodation civil-rights cognitive-disability due-process execution-method nitrogen-hypoxia prison-rights standing statutory-deadline What is the threshold of evidence required for a cognitively disabled petitioner to establish that his need for accommodation was obvious under the AD…
19-1361 Richard Jordan, et al. v. Georgia Department of Corrections Eleventh Circuit 2020-06-11 Denied 8th-amendment alternative-method availability capital-punishment death-penalty department-of-corrections departments-of-corrections execution-method feasibility Glossip-v-Gross legal-precedent Whether evidence of how other departments of corrections have obtained and successfully administered an alternative execution method is relevant to sh…
19-7880 Nathaniel Woods v. Jefferson S. Dunn, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, et al. Eleventh Circuit 2020-03-05 Denied IFP arbitrary-and-capricious arbitrary-discrimination arbitrary-punishment death-penalty due-process eighth-amendment equal-protection execution-method nitrogen-hypoxia suppressed-information Does the Eighth Amendment apply only to imposition of a death sentence, or may a petitioner challenge how a death sentence is carried out?
18-8332 Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman, et al. v. Tony Parker, Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Corrections, et al. Tennessee 2019-03-08 Denied Amici (1)IFP cross-examination discovery due-process execution-method execution-secrecy method-of-execution prisoners-rights privileged-communications standing state-officials state-secrecy Does a state deprive condemned prisoners of due process when, to defeat a challenge to the state's method of execution, state officials rely on and th…
18-852 Anne L. Precythe v. Ernest Johnson Eighth Circuit 2019-01-04 GVR administrative-procedure cruel-and-unusual-punishment death-penalty eighth-amendment execution-method feasible-alternative glossip-v-gross method-of-execution nitrogen-gas pentobarbital pleading-requirements Whether an inmate who demands an alternative method of execution must plead facts detailing the procedure by which his proposed alternative method of …
18-6906 David E. Miller v. Tony Parker, Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Correction, et al. Sixth Circuit 2018-12-03 Denied IFP coercion cruel-and-unusual-punishment death-penalty eighth-amendment ex-post-facto execution-method lethal-injection waiver waiver-of-rights When an inmate alleges that both his original and later-imposed punishments for the same crime violate the Eighth Amendment but the later-imposed puni…
24A498 Carey Grayson v. John Q. Hamm, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, et al. Eleventh Circuit Denied capital-punishment conscious-suffocation cruel-and-unusual-punishment eighth-amendment execution-method nitrogen-hypoxia Whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits executing a prisoner via nitrogen hypoxia in a manner that potentially causes conscious suffocation and superad…