In re: Tibbetts

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In 1998, Tibbetts was convicted of murder, aggravated murder, and aggravated robbery and was sentenced to death. Tibbetts filed his first habeas petition in 2003, challenging “the administration of the death penalty by lethal injection.” A Magistrate determined found the claim meritless. Tibbetts did not object to this ruling, abandoning that claim. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of the petition. Tibbetts filed his second habeas petition in 2014, listing 10 grounds for relief, all relating to execution by lethal injection under Ohio law. The district court determined that this was a second-or-successive petition, over which it lacked jurisdiction, and transferred it to the Sixth Circuit, which dismissed. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act limits the authority of federal courts to grant relief to individuals who previously filed a habeas petition; petitioners challenging state court judgments must seek authorization in a federal appeals court before filing a “second or successive” petition in district court, 28 U.S.C. 2244(b). A second-or-successive petition stating claims that were presented in a prior petition “shall be dismissed.” Tibbetts argued that he could not raise his lethal-injection challenge until the state adopted the revised execution protocol. Tibbetts raised such a general claim in his first petition, none of the newly arising circumstances identified in his second petition are necessary to a general claim that his sentence to death by lethal injection is unconstitutional. View "In re: Tibbetts" on Justia Law