Arkansas Executions 2017

A disciplinary panel has filed ethics charges against six Arkansas Supreme Court justices over their decision to prohibit Pulaski County Circuit Judge Griffen from hearing execution cases after he took part in a death penalty demonstration last year.

The Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission said the high court didn’t gave Griffen adequate notice or an opportunity to be heard over his removal from the cases. Griffen was photographed lying on a cot outside the governor's mansion last year the same day he blocked Arkansas from using an execution drug.

An attorney for an Arkansas judge who faces sanctions for participating in a death penalty demonstration the same day he blocked the use of an execution drug says the complaint against the jurist is more about optics than it is ethics.

A judicial ethics commission on Friday held a hearing on Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen's request to dismiss the complaint against him over the demonstration last year. Griffen was photographed laying on a cot outside the governor's mansion during a death penalty demonstration last year.

An Arkansas judge charged with breaking judicial ethics rules for participating in an anti-death penalty demonstration the same day he blocked the state from using an execution drug says a disciplinary panel should dismiss its case against him.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen's attorneys renewed their May 2017 request for the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission to dismiss the complaint against the judge.

A judicial disciplinary panel has charged an Arkansas judge with ethics violations for lying on a cot outside the governor's mansion during an anti-death penalty demonstration the same day he blocked the state from using a lethal injection drug.

Eighteen condemned inmates say in new court filings that the executions of four men in Arkansas last year exposed problems that should render the state's lethal injection procedure unconstitutional.

Citing witness accounts of what happened in the execution chamber, the inmates' lawyers say it was never clear whether the Arkansas Department of Correction followed its guidelines. They said there was no way to tell when each drug was administered and that it wasn't clear an attendant performed proper consciousness checks on each inmate.

An Arkansas judge's efforts to obtain documents and testimony from the state Supreme Court on its decision to bar him from hearing any death penalty cases has been put on hold.

The high court asked for the delay until a federal judge decides whether to allow a lawsuit against the justices to proceed.

U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr. on Monday granted a request to temporarily stay discovery in Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen's lawsuit. That suit challenges justices' decision to bar him from any cases involving the death penalty.

A lawyer for an Arkansas inmate who came within hours of being put to death last year has told the state Supreme Court that for three decades it has been misinterpreting a ruling that sets when death row inmates should have access to mental health experts.

Bruce Ward was among eight inmates set for execution last April. Justices issued a stay for him and Don Davis while the U.S. Supreme Court took up a similar case from Alabama. In arguments Thursday, lawyer Scott Braden said Ward never had access to a fully independent mental examiner.

An Arkansas judge disqualified from handling execution cases after participating in an anti-death penalty demonstration says his lawsuit against the state's highest court should be allowed to move forward.

Attorneys for Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen asked a federal court Tuesday to deny motions by state Supreme Court justices to dismiss his lawsuit challenging his disqualification.

The state of Arkansas has identified a New York pharmaceutical company – that doesn’t want its product used in executions – as the manufacturer of a recently acquired lethal injection drug. Arkansas was to carry out an execution Thursday night before the state Supreme Court granted an emergency stay based on questions about the mental health of death row inmate Jack Greene.