Joe Clarence Smith, Jr. v. David Shinn, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry, et al.

This case concerns Arizona’s longest-serving, death-row prisoner alive today. Petitioner, Joe C. Smith, Jr., was first sentenced to death in 1977. After one reversal for constitutional error, a second reversal for ineffective assistance of counsel, and unsuccessful attempts at post-conviction and habeas relief, Mr. Smith brought a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 because respondents’ conduct constitutes excessive, gratuitous, cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The questions presented are:

1. Whether Mr. Smith’s method-of-execution challenge is cognizable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

2. Whether a method of execution involving 44 years of mostly solitary confinement on death row prior to execution constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.