James Gomez and Daniel Vasquez v. United States District Court for the Northern District of California, et al. (503 U.S. 653)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 21, 1992 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 503 U.S. 653 · 112 S. Ct. 1652
- Decided
- April 21, 1992
- Term
- October Term 1991
- Vote
- 7–2
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. Robert Alton Harris brought a 42 U. S. C. § 1983 action claiming that execution by lethal gas is cruel and unusual in violation of the Eighth Amendment. This action is an obvious attempt to avoid the application of McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467 (1991), to bar this successive claim for relief. Harris has now filed four prior federal habeas petitions. He has made no convincing showing of cause for his failure to raise this claim in his prior petitions. Even if we were to assume, however, that Harris could avoid the application of McCleskey to bar his claim, we would not consider it on the merits. Whether his claim is framed as a habeas petition or as a § 1983 action, Harris seeks an equitable remedy. Equity must take into consideration the State’s strong interest in proceeding with its judgment and Harris’ obvious attempt at manipulation. See In re Blodgett, 502 U. S. 236 (1992); Delo v. Stokes, 495 U. S. 320, 322 (1990) (Kennedy, J., concurring). This claim could have been brought more than a decade ago. There is no good reason for this abusive delay, which has been compounded by last-minute attempts to manipulate the judicial process. A court may consider the last-minute nature of an application to stay execution in deciding whether to grant equitable relief. The application to vacate the stay of execution of death is granted, and it is ordered that the orders…
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