Sunday, 11 November 2007

11 circuit ruling in Mark Schwab

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
NOV 09, 2007
No. 07-15258
THOMAS K. KAHN
CLERK
IN RE:
MARK DEAN SCHWAB,
Petitioner,
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Middle District of Florida

Before: DUBINA, CARNES and HULL, Circuit Judges.
BY THE COURT:
We have previously affirmed the denial of federal habeas relief to Mark
Dean Schwab, a Florida death row inmate. Schwab v. Crosby, 451 F.3d 1308
(11th Cir. 2006). Before us now are his application to file a second or successive
federal habeas corpus petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b), and a motion for
stay of execution in order to permit us time to consider that application. The only

claim Schwab wants to raise in a second petition involves the constitutionality of
Florida’s lethal injection procedures and protocols.
Even if such a claim were properly cognizable in an initial federal habeas
petition, instead of in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 proceeding, see generally Hill v.
McDonough, 126 S.Ct. 2096, 2099 (2006); Nelson v. Campbell, 541 U.S. 637,
124 S.Ct. 2117 (2004), Rutherford v. McDonough, 466 F.3d 970, 973 (11th Cir.
2006) (observing that pre-Nelson circuit law requiring challenges to lethal
injection procedures to be brought in a § 2254 proceeding is “no longer valid in
light of the Supreme Court’s Hill decision.”), this claim cannot serve as a proper
basis for a second or successive habeas petition. It cannot because it neither relies
on a new rule of constitutional law made retroactive to cases on collateral review
by the Supreme Court, 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(A), nor involves facts relating to
guilt or innocence, see 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii).
Our disposition of the application renders the motion for stay of execution
moot.
APPLICATION DENIED; MOTION FOR STAY DENIED AS MOOT.
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