Christopher Lee Price v. Dunn
In brief
The Supreme Court declined to hear Price’s case and did not decide whether Alabama’s lethal-injection protocol was lawful.
- Where it stands
- Decided
Decided · May 13, 2019
- What it’s about
- The Court denied Christopher Price’s petition for review, leaving in place the lower court’s ruling that Alabama could use its three-drug lethal-injection protocol.
- Who it affects
- The denial left the lower court’s ruling in place for this case. It did not decide whether Alabama had to seek pentobarbital or whether its protocol violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Summary: written with AI from the case record.
What it's about
Alabama prevailed because Price had not shown that pentobarbital was a feasible and readily available alternative that would significantly reduce the risk of severe pain.
This was a death-row challenge to Alabama’s execution method, but the Supreme Court addressed only whether to hear the case.
Question presented
1. Has an Alabama death row inmate shown that pentobarbital is “available” to the ADOC where he proves that pentobarbital is easily made by any compounding pharmacy, multiple states are presently able to obtain the drug for use in executions, and the ADOC failed to undertake “ordinary transactional efforts” to obtain the drug? 2. If a state’s lethal injection protocol will cause the inmate to experience gruesome and brutal pain, is the state entitled to proceed with the execution anyways, merely because the state cannot immediately obtain alternative drugs known to be effective in accomplishing a humane lethal injection execution?
What the Court decided
Holding
Petition DENIED. Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Alito and Justice Gorsuch join, concurring in the denial of certiorari. (Detached Opinion )
What's next
The Supreme Court’s docket action is finished. The lower court’s ruling remains in place for this case, and this order provides no Supreme Court decision on the underlying legal questions.
Documents
Opinions
Key filings
Docket activity
New analysis added
AI analysis generated: Case Briefing
AI analysis generated: Decision Record
New analysis added
Case data updated: summary, question_presented, generation_metadata
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Opinion added: Opinion
Brief added: Petition
More questions
- What did the Supreme Court do in Price v. Dunn?
- It declined Supreme Court review by denying Christopher Price’s request. The Court did not decide whether Alabama’s lethal-injection protocol was lawful.
- Did Price v. Dunn decide whether pentobarbital was available?
- No. The Court left that question unresolved because it denied review without deciding the underlying legal question.
- What happened to Alabama’s lower-court ruling in Price v. Dunn?
- The lower court’s ruling remained in place for this case. The denial did not itself decide that Alabama’s protocol was lawful.
- Who wrote separately in Price v. Dunn?
- Justice Thomas wrote separately to agree with denying review. Justices Alito and Gorsuch signed onto his opinion, and the record gives no vote count.
Sources
Primary materials plus reporting. Best-effort analysis: this explainer relies on a mix of primary materials and trusted secondary sources. Official filings and opinions remain authoritative.