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U.S. | I'm a Death Row Pastor. They're Just Ordinary Folks

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In the early 1970s I was a North Carolinian, white boy from the South attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and working in East Harlem as part of a program. In my senior year, I visited men at the Bronx House of Detention. I had never been in a prison or jail, but people in East Harlem were dealing with these places and the police all the time. This experience truly turned my life around.

Arkansas judge halts executions of 8 on death row

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Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen temporarily halted the scheduled executions of eight death row prisoners on Friday.

In an order issued in the inmates' lawsuit against the Arkansas Department of Correction, Griffen wrote "that immediate and irreparable harm will result to plaintiffs absent a temporary restraining order enjoining defendants from executing plaintiffs as scheduled."

Nine inmates filed suit June 29 seeking to have the state law that sets out the method of execution declared unconstitutional. 

The suit also asked that the state be permanently blocked from using the current lethal injection method of execution.

Friday's order applies to all nine inmates, but only eight of them have scheduled execution dates, the earliest being Oct. 21. Plaintiffs Don Davis and Bruce Ward were to be executed that day.

Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, October 9, 2015

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Location: Arkansas, USA
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