Nelson v. Campbell, 541 U.S. 637 (2004), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court considering whether a prisoner's appeal of proposed execution procedures was equivalent to a habeas corpus petition.

On January 1, 1978, David Larry Nelson killed Wilson Woodrow Thompson and James Dewey Cash, a cab driver.

[1] Nelson had previously pleaded guilty to beating an eighty-two-year-old man, Oliver King, to death in a Birmingham, Alabama, parking lot.

[1][3] The Supreme Court unanimously held that an appeal of proposed execution procedures is different from a habeas corpus petition because it is not an appeal of a conviction or sentence, so a prisoner challenging the procedures for his execution can base his Eighth Amendment claim on Section 1983.

The Court stated that the cut-down procedure was "dangerous and antiquated," arguing that they saw "no reason on the face of the complaint to treat petitioner's claim differently solely because he has been condemned to die.