After his murder conviction was affirmed, and his first petition for habeas corpus was denied, Karl LaGrand, an Arizona death row inmate, filed a second habeas corpus petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. In the second petition, which was filed in 1998, the plaintiff argued that the use of lethal gas as a means of execution violated his constitutional rights because it was cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The District Court denied relief, finding that it lacked jurisdiction over the issue because the plaintiff should have raised the lethal gas argument prior to his first habeas petition. The plaintiff appealed. On February 24, 1999, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Judge Thomas G. Nelson) reversed in part and remanded, holding that the plaintiff had established cause for failing to raise his challenge to the constitutionality of the lethal gas prior to his first habeas petition, that the petitioner established prejudice required to excuse the procedural default of the lethal gas challenge, that the petitioner's voluntary choice of lethal gas as a method of execution did not waive his claim that the use of lethal gas was unconstitutional, and that the Arizona method of using lethal gas to execute inmates violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. LaGrand v. Stewart, 173 F.3d 1144 (9th Cir. 1999).

The defendants appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking them to vacate the stay of execution of the death sentence. On February 24, 1999, the same day as the Ninth Circuit opinion, the Supreme Court granted the defendants' request and vacated the stay of execution order without issuing an explanatory opinion. Stewart v. LaGrand, 525 U.S. 1173 (1999). The plaintiff filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, and on April 14, 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the petition. Stewart v. LaGrand, 526 U.S. 1061 (1999).

Karl Hinze LaGrand was executed on February 24, 1999 by lethal injection.

Kristen Sagar - 08/23/2007


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