Anderson

Stephen Wayne Anderson (“Anderson”) stands convicted of murder and sentenced to death. See Anderson v. Calderon, 232 F.3d 1053 (9th Cir.2000), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 122 S.Ct. 580 , 151 L.Ed.2d 451 (2001). His execution is currently scheduled to occur on January 29, 2002, at 12:01 AM. He has exhausted his appeals and opportunities for collateral review and now seeks a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction against his execution by the State of California. The ground he advances is that the Governor of California, Gray Davis, allegedly has a blanket policy vis á vis murderers to deny all applications of executive clemency out-of-hand without exercising any judgment on the particular case or prisoner before him. This policy, asserts Anderson, violates both the Eighth and the Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and denies to him the due process to which he is entitled under law. The legal authority for his case rests largely on language from Justice O’Con-nor’s opinion in Ohio Adult Parole Auth. v. Woodard, 523 U.S. 272, 289 , 118 S.Ct. 1244 , 140 L.Ed.2d 387 (1998) (O’Connor, J., concurring):

Anderson’s tactical objective in this action is…