http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/224462/

Arkansas to proceed with executions
BY NOEL E. OMAN

Posted on Friday, May 2, 2008

URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/224462/


The state will resume executing death-row inmates by lethal injection
after making protocol changes to better conform with a recent U. S.
Supreme Court decision that upheld the procedure.

Gov. Mike Beebe made the decision Thursday after conferring with
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, said Matt DeCample, a spokesman for
Beebe.

"This morning he authorized the [Arkansas Department of Correction ],
at the recommendation of the attorney general, to make a few changes
in the protocol, and then the attorney general, at his discretion,
will begin sending letters on inmates who are basically cleared of
legal action, and the executions can proceed," DeCample said.

Beebe's decision comes a little more than two weeks after the
nation's high court upheld the lethal-injection method used to
administer the death penalty. The high court's ruling cleared the way
for dissolving a sevenmonth moratorium on executions nationwide.

By 7-2, the court rejected challenges to the Kentucky execution
procedure brought by two death-row inmates, holding that they had
failed to show that the risks of pain from mistakes in an
otherwise "humane lethal execution protocol" amounted to cruel and
unusual punishment, which is banned by Eighth Amendment to the U. S.
Constitution.

Beebe has set execution dates for three inmates since he became
governor in January 2007, but their cases were stayed pending the
decision in the Kentucky case.

"It's one of the most solemn duties you have as governor, and it's
not something he or any other governor looks forward to doing, but
it's the law of the land and needs to be carried out," De-Cample
said.

Dina Tyler, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Correction,
said the changes in the protocol are minor.

"It's just putting our practice on paper," she said. "It will say in
the policy that the members of the IV team will have at least two
years of medical experience. The members do have two years, but we
didn't have that written down. It also will say the drugs will be
mixed according to the manufacturer's directions. They already are,
but this will just say it on paper."

Justin Allen, the chief deputy attorney general, declined to discuss
the specifics of the protocol until they are final but said they
represented a "couple of small suggestions" McDaniel
recommended "based on our reading of the Supreme Court case."

"The Supreme Court has blessed that method of execution," Allen
said. "Our protocol is substantially the same as Kentucky. There are
no changes to the three drugs that are given, the order in which they
are given and the amount in which they are given."

Jeff Rosenzweig of Little Rock, an attorney who represents death-row
inmate Jack Harold Jones Jr., said he wanted to see the final policy
before commenting.

"I'm not surprised that they are proceeding," he said. "We'll have to
see what changes in the protocol they are making. If they photocopy
the Kentucky protocol, the courts will have to uphold. We'll just
have to wait and see and react accordingly."

Beebe set dates for the executions of Jones, Don Davis and Terrick
Nooner.

All three won stays of execution in a lawsuit that was similar to the
Kentucky litigation the Supreme Court decided. McDaniel's office will
seek to dissolve the stays for Jones and Davis, Allen said. Nooner
has a separate federal case challenging his conviction that must be
resolved before the state can execute him, Allen added.

Frank Williams, 41, may be the first inmate to have an execution date
set. He was convicted of killing a farmer who had fired him in
Lafayette County in 1993. He has exhausted his appeals and had no
stay of execution in place, Allen said.

"Once we get the protocol in final form, it is likely the attorney
general will notify the governor that he has exhausted his appeals
and is eligible to have a date set for execution," he said.

A spokesman for a group formed to abolish the death penalty in
Arkansas said Beebe's decision doesn't alter the groups plans.

The decision "was to be expected," said Bob Sells, a spokesman for
the Arkansas Death Penalty Moratorium Campaign. The governor and
attorney general must "follow the law of the land and that is what
they are doing. The point is what we're going to do in the future
with the death penalty, and that's what we're concerned about."

The campaign hopes to gather signatures from 100, 000 Arkansans for a
symbolic petition to present to the governor. It wants a blue-ribbon
commission created to study death-penalty matters that could include
whether some jurisdictions pursue the death penalty more often than
others, whether the state is executing innocent people and whether
sentences are imposed unfairly on defendants who are members of
minority groups.

Davis, 45, was convicted in 1992 of the slaying of Jane Daniel, a 62-
year-old Rogers woman, two years earlier.

Nooner, 37, was convicted of capital murder in the March 1993
shooting death of Scot Stobaugh, a 22-year-old University of Arkansas
at Little Rock student, at the Fun Wash on West Markham Street in
Little Rock.

Jones, 43, was convicted of the capital murder of Mary Phillips, 35,
in Bald Knob in 1995. He later pleaded guilty to the 1991 murder of
Lorraine Barrett, 32, in Florida. That state gave Jones a life
sentence for Barrett's murder.

Arkansas hasn't executed anyone since November 2005, when Eric Nance
was put to death for the murder of Julie Heath, an 18-year-old
Malvern woman.

Forty inmates are on Arkansas' death row.