Arkansas officials vowed to carry out a double execution later this week after the U.S. Supreme Court
delivered a setback to the state's plan to resume capital punishment for the 1st time in nearly 12 years with a ruling sparing an inmate just minutes before his death warrant was set to expire.
The court's decision was the second time Don Davis had been granted a reprieve shortly before execution - he was within hours of death in 2010. It capped a chaotic day of legal wrangling in state and federal courts Monday as Arkansas tried to clear obstacles to carrying out its first executions since 2005.
Davis had already been served a last meal, and witnesses were being moved toward the execution chamber when the Supreme Court ruled just minutes before Davis' death warrant expired at midnight.
Davis was sentenced to death for the 1990 death of Jane Daniel in Rogers, Arkansas. The woman was killed in her home after Davis broke in and shot her with a .44-caliber revolver he found there.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson had set an aggressive schedule of as many as eight executions by the end of April, when the state's supply of a key lethal injection drug expires. Davis and Bruce Ward were supposed to be the 1st 2 of those Monday but Ward received a stay of execution and the state did not appeal the decision. The state did challenge a stay granted to Davis but the last-minute U.S. Supreme Court ruling ensured that he would not enter the death chamber Monday.
Despite the setbacks, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said Arkansas would press ahead with other planned executions, including 2 set for Thursday - Ledell Lee and Stacey Johnson.
"There are 5 scheduled executions remaining with nothing preventing them from occurring, but I will continue to respond to any and all legal challenges brought by the prisoners," Rutledge said.
Lawyers for the inmates were not immediately available after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Earlier in the day, the state had cleared 2 of the main obstacles to resuming executions. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a federal judge's ruling blocking the executions over the use of midazolam, a sedative used in flawed executions in other states. The state Supreme Court also lifted a lower court ruling preventing the state from using another lethal injection drug that a supplier said was sold to be used for medical purposes, not executions.
The high court's order sparing Davis offered no explanation, but none of the justices voted in favor of lifting the stay. Monday marked the 1st day that the U.S. Supreme Court was in session with new Justice Neil Gorsuch on the bench.
Hutchinson's original schedule of 8 lethal injections in 11 days would have marked the most inmates put to death by a state in such a short period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The state scheduled such a compressed schedule because of the expiration of its supply of midazolam.
Arkansas enacted a law 2 years ago keeping secret the source of its lethal injection drugs, a move officials said was necessary to find new supplies. Despite the secrecy measure, prison officials have said it will be very difficult to find a supplier willing to sell Arkansas midazolam after its current stock expires.
Source: Associated Press, April 18, 2017
State's high court removes judge who protested death penalty from capital-punishment cases
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Judge Wendell Griffen (center) participated in a protest outside the Arkansas
governor's mansion where he lay on a cot to mimic a condemned prisoner. |
The Arkansas Supreme Court has removed a judge who participated in a death-penalty protest from hearing capital punishment cases.
In an assignment order issued Monday, the state's high court said it was necessary to reassign Judge Wendell Griffen's cases and to refer him to the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission to determine whether he violated judicial conduct rules.
After a medical supplier filed a complaint Friday, Griffen issued a temporary restraining order barring the state from executing condemned inmates it had planned to put to death beginning Monday.
Also Friday, Griffen participated in a protest outside the Arkansas governor's mansion where he lay on a cot to mimic a condemned prisoner.
"To protect the integrity of the judicial system this court has a duty to ensure that all are given a fair and impartial tribunal," the order from the Supreme Court said. "We find it necessary to immediately reassign all cases in the Fifth Division that involve the death penalty or the state's execution protocol, whether civil or criminal."
Source: arkansasonline.com, April 18, 2017
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