In the case of James Gomez and Daniel Vasquez v. United States District Court for the Northern District of California, et al., 1991, prison officials from San Quentin State Prison appealed a district court's order that required them to provide specific medical treatment to an inmate suffering from a terminal illness. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the prison officials, stating that decisions about medical care should be left to prison doctors rather than dictated by courts unless there is evidence of deliberate indifference or mistreatment. This decision reinforced the principle that federal courts should not interfere with day-to-day operations of prisons and emphasized respect for professional judgment within correctional facilities regarding healthcare provision.

In the dissenting opinion for Gomez v. United States District Court, Justice Marshall argued that the majority's decision to allow an execution without a hearing on whether or not lethal injection constituted cruel and unusual punishment was in violation of Eighth Amendment rights. He contended that there were serious questions about the pain caused by lethal injections which had not been adequately addressed. Furthermore, he criticized the majority's assertion that Harris (the inmate) had delayed unnecessarily in bringing his claim forward, stating it was unreasonable to expect someone under sentence of death to keep abreast of all medical and scientific developments relating to methods of execution. In essence, Justice Marshall believed that denying a stay of execution before these issues could be properly examined undermined constitutional safeguards against cruel and unusual punishment.