Arkansas Supreme Court approves executions

Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty 'deeply troubled' by ruling

Published: June 24, 2016

By Aprille Hanson
Associate Editor

Malea Hargett

Malea Hargett

Arkansas has the green light from the state Supreme Court to execute eight death row inmates, ruling that it is constitutional to keep the maker and seller of the lethal injection drugs a secret.

“The circuit court erred in ruling that public access to the identity of the supplier of the three drugs [the Arkansas Department of Correction] has obtained would positively enhance the functioning of executions in Arkansas. As has been well documented, disclosing the information is actually detrimental to the process,” the ruling stated.

The split vote, 4-3, prompted Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge to say that she will request new dates for the inmates to be executed, saying in a statement on the attorney general website, arkansasag.gov, “I know that victims’ families want to see justice carried out.”

A statement released by Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said it is “deeply troubled by the court’s departure from established precedent.” Currently, 34 men are on death row in Arkansas and the state has not executed anyone since 2005. Sister Joan Pytlik, DC, minister for religious at the Diocese of Little Rock, is a part of the coalition.

“Today’s ruling announces that the state is no longer bound to agreements that it chooses not to abide by and that our state’s Freedom of Information Act can be easily circumvented,” ACADP stated. “Under current law, prisoners are strapped with the burden of proving that there is a known and available alternative to the state’s current execution protocol, and while this law requires those condemned to death row to basically plan their own executions, the prisoner’s identification of five alternatives to the state’s current of execution was still not sufficient for the Court.”

A decision has not yet been made on whether or not Rutledge will request the Arkansas Supreme Court to expedite formalizing its ruling as one of the lethal injection drugs is due to expire June 30 and the seller will not provide more.

Court decisions take 18 days to be certified, making it official July 11.

The inmates argued last year that because state law allowed information about the source of the three drugs -- midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride -- to remain a secret, they could not determine whether or not they could be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. Austin Sarat, a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, stated in his 2014 book, “Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty,” that from 1890 to 2010, 8,776 people were executed and something went wrong in 276 (or 3.15 percent) of executions. Lethal injections were most commonly botched compared to other methods.

In September, Bishop Anthony B. Taylor released a statement appealing to the state legislature and Gov. Asa Hutchinson to stop the executions, which said in part, “God's gift of life is sacred, regardless of a person's usefulness to society, which means that there is no justification whatsoever to take the lives of people who are locked away and pose no further threat to society. The Old Testament passages that call for the execution of criminals have to be read in the context of a semi-nomadic people living in tents who did not have any way to incarcerate vicious criminals long term, much less for life. And that is the only possible justification for capital punishment: when and only when, a society has no other way to protect itself. We do not live in tents and we have very secure prisons capable of keeping dangerous people off the streets for life.”

Less than a month later, Pope Francis, through Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, sent a letter to Hutchinson as well, asking him to commute the death sentences.

On Dec. 3, 2015, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen agreed with the inmates, ordering the state to release the manufacturer of the drugs. In June 2015, drugs valued at $24,226.40 were purchased for the eight executions.

Hutchinson originally set the executions for October 2015. Hutchinson’s spokesman J.R. Davis said in a statement to Arkansas Catholic: “Governor Hutchinson believes Judge Griffen overstepped his authority and is pleased the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed his ruling upholding the law protecting the confidentiality of the supplier. The governor is now reviewing the decision and is conferring with the attorney general about what are the appropriate next steps to take.”

ACADP has argued the death penalty is costly and there is “proven racial disparity” in the state’s death penalty. According to Amnesty International, there were 1,634 recorded executions in 2015, the highest documented by the organization since 1989. The countries most commonly holding the executions were Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. China was excluded from the list as their executions remain secret, Amnesty International stated on their website, amnesty.org.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, it costs taxpayers $90,000 more per year to house a death row inmate than an inmate in a regular prison.

In 2015, the ACADP drafted Senate Bill 298 that proposed the abolition of the death penalty. Though it was the first time such a bill passed in committee, it was not put before the state Senate for a vote. In 2017, the group plans on drafting another bill that replaces the death penalty with a life sentence.