Supreme Court of Florida

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2006

ARTHUR DENNIS RUTHERFORD vs. CHARLES J. CRIST, JR.,

ETC., ET AL

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Petitioner(s) Respondent(s)

Arthur Rutherford, who is under a pending death warrant, has filed a Petition

Seeking to Invoke this Court's All Writs Jurisdiction and a Motion for Stay of

Execution, which is scheduled for October 18, 2006. Rutherford's petition concerns

the Department of Corrections' denial of a public records request for current lethal

injection procedures, followed by the circuit court's denial of a motion to compel

production. The State has filed a response to which it has attached the Department's

procedures governing execution by lethal injection, effective August 16, 2006. We

permitted Rutherford to file a reply.

We deny relief. Our review of the current lethal injection procedures, attached

to the State's response, reveals nothing that would cause this Court to revisit our

previous conclusions "that procedures for administering the lethal injection as attested

do not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment."

Rutherford v. State, 926 So. 2d 1100, 1113 (Fla. 2006) (quoting Hill v. State, 921 So.

2d 579, 583 (Fla. 2006), and Sims v. State, 753 So. 2d 657, 668 (Fla. 2000)).

CASE NO. SC6-2023

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Accordingly, Rutherford's petition and motion for a stay of execution are

hereby denied. No motion for rehearing will be allowed.

It is so ordered.

LEWIS, C.J., and WELLS, PARIENTE, QUINCE and CANTERO, JJ., concur.

ANSTEAD, J., concurs specially with an opinion.

BELL, J., recused.

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Served:

CAROLYN M. SNURKOWSKI

LINDA MCDERMOTT

MARTIN J. MCCLAIN

HON. JOHN ELLIS "JEB" BUSH, GOVERNOR

ROSA H. CARSON

CHARMAINE M. MILLSAPS

CASE NO. SC06-2023

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ANSTEAD, J., concurring specially.

I concur in the majority's denial of relief because I, too, am bound by the

rulings of this Court rejecting similar challenges to the State's procedures for execution

by lethal injection in Hill and Rutherford as cited by the majority. I am troubled,

however, by the fact that the State has not at all times made its execution procedures

and protocols a matter of public record, and by the fact that since our initial decision

in Sims approving the use of lethal injection based substantially on theory, there has

been no public evidentiary hearing focused on the purpose and effectiveness of the

State's procedures, and on what actually takes place during the course of an execution

by lethal injection. Now that this method of execution has been in place for a number

of years we would all benefit by such a hearing.