McDaniel Studies High Court Ruling On Executions
Benton County Murderer Awaits Lethal Injection
Last updated Wednesday, April 16, 2008 7:38 PM CDT in News
By John Lyon
The Morning News
LITTLE ROCK - Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said Wednesday he doesn't know whether Arkansas is ready to resume executions now that the Supreme Court has upheld Kentucky's lethal injection procedure.
In a 7-2 vote, the nation's highest court ruled Wednesday that two Kentucky death row inmates who filed a lawsuit challenging that state's lethal injection procedure failed to show that the procedure constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Lethal injection is the most common method of execution in the United States.
Executions in Arkansas and other states have been on hold since the Supreme Court agreed last year to the hear the Kentucky case.
Arkansas has 38 inmates on death row. Three of them - Terrick Nooner, Jack Harold Jones Jr. and Don William Davis - had execution dates set but later had their executions put on hold pending a decision by the Supreme Court in the Kentucky case, Baze v. Rees.
Davis was sentenced in the 1990 murder of Jane Daniel of Rogers. A U.S. District Court judge stayed Davis' execution, and McDaniel also declined to fight that stay.
Davis was set to be executed in 2006 but claimed death by lethal injection was unconstitutional because of the potential that he might not die quickly enough and therefore would suffer pain.
Davis killed Daniel at her Twin Lakes Estates home on Oct. 12, 1990. Davis shot her execution-style with a .44 Magnum and stole items from the home, including jewelry.
Davis was convicted in 1992, filed an unsuccessful appeal in 1994 and was scheduled for execution by lethal injection on Nov. 22, 1999.
Governors in some states said executions could resume because of Wednesday's ruling.
"The governor's office and our office have conversed already this morning, and I think the important thing to do is to read it," McDaniel told reporters when asked about the Supreme Court ruling.
"It's long and complicated, and we want to make sure that we have a full understanding of what the court is saying and how it applies specifically to Arkansas before we make any specific comments about moving forward with those executions that are currently on hold."
The ruling is lengthy because, in an unusual move, the justices filed seven separate opinions.
A spokesman for Gov. Mike Beebe, who was on vacation in Arizona, said Beebe's staff was reviewing the Supreme Court's decision.
McDaniel said he was trying to determine how the ruling related to Arkansas law.
"There are going to be specific issues of law, in fact, in Arkansas that are different from Kentucky. So it may answer all of our questions; it may leave some still left unanswered," he said.
Nooner, Jones, Davis and a fourth death-row inmate, Frank Williams Jr. - for whom no execution date has ever been set - are challenging Arkansas' lethal injection process in a lawsuit similar to the Florida case. A federal judge stayed the Arkansas case in November but told the plaintiffs they could file a motion to reopen the case within 30 days of a Supreme Court decision in the Kentucky case.
Little Rock lawyer Jeff Rosenzweig, who represents Jones, said Wednesday's ruling is bad news for the plaintiffs in the Arkansas case.
"At first blush I think that it will hurt us immensely," he said.
Larry Daniel of Rogers, Jane Daniel's stepson, said in July they were skeptical Davis would be executed.
"It gets very emotional. You kind of relive everything. It's one of those things that you want to get it done, so you can put it behind you and move forward," Daniel said. "We are still waiting for the orders of the court to be carried out."
David Rickard, president of the Arkansas Coalition for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, said the ruling will not end challenges to the death penalty. The ruling addresses only whether a particular procedure is cruel and unusual, leaving broader questions unanswered, he said.
"What about the question of fairness?" Rickard said. "What about the question of discrimination based on socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity? What about the question of, we've now had 128 exonerations nationwide? How many innocent people have we managed to kill?"
Rickard said the coalition wants the governor to appoint a committee to study the use of the death penalty in Arkansas and to impose a moratorium on executions until the committee completes its study.
Justin Allen, Arkansas' chief deputy attorney general, said that if the state decides to move forward with executions, the likely first action would be to remove any stays that need to be removed, then set execution dates for Jones and Davis.
Nooner has a June hearing scheduled on other issues in his appeal, so the state is not likely to set an execution date for him anytime soon, Allen said.
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