Opinion
Case No. SC11-1785.
September 21, 2011.
Petitioner Manuel Valle, a prisoner under sentence of death and an active death warrant, filed an all-writs petition in this Court seeking to declare section 27.702, Florida Statutes (2010), unconstitutional to the extent that it prohibits Capital Collateral Regional Counsel (CCRC) attorneys from representing him in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil action to challenge the alleged denial of a clemency proceeding. We possess and exercise our jurisdiction to resolve this claim. See art. V, § 3(b)( 7), Fla. Const.;see also Ventura v. State, 2 So. 3d 194, 201 n. 9 (Fla. 2009) ("Any exercise of jurisdiction with regard to Ventura's pro se all-writs petition would necessarily aid this tribunal in the `complete exercise of its jurisdiction' concerning this capital case." (quoting art. V, § 3(b)( 7), Fla. Const.)).
The Court declines Valle's request to extend its narrow holding inDarling v. State, 45 So. 3d 444 (Fla. 2010), to the unique facts of this case. See id. at 455 ("We are interpreting an additional extremely narrow window to allow CCRC attorneys to represent capital defendants in section 1983 challenges, if, and only if, they seek injunctive relief to challenge the State's intended method of execution. Nothing in our opinion should be construed to authorize representation by CCRC in any other type of section 1983 claims." (emphasis added)). We have previously rejected the argument that the denial of CCRC representation in a § 1983 civil action violates a capital defendant's rights to due process and equal protection. See State ex. rel. Butterworth v. Kenny, 714 So. 2d 404, 407-10 (Fla. 1998) (rejecting CCRC's argument that an application of chapter 27 to bar it from engaging in any type of civil litigation would violate its clients' rights to due process and equal protection), receded from on other grounds by Darling, 45 So. 3d at 453. He points to no persuasive authority that section 27.702 is unconstitutional. Accordingly, we hereby deny Valle's all-writs petition. His contemporaneously filed motion for a stay of execution is also denied.
No motion for rehearing will be allowed.
It is so ordered.
PARIENTE, LEWIS, QUINCE, LABARGA, and PERRY, JJ., concur.
CANADY, C.J., and POLSTON, J., concur in denying the motion for a stay of execution but would dismiss the all-writs petition for lack of jurisdiction.