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Thread: Arkansas Capital Punishment News

  1. #231
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    Arkansas board investigating state's buy of lethal drugs

    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas State Medical Board says it's investigating whether any licensed doctors helped the Department of Correction obtain the drugs used to execute four inmates last month.

    Kevin O'Dwyer, who serves as an attorney for the medical board, says the inquiry arose after media coverage of the executions.

    Arkansas uses three drugs in lethal injections: a sedative, a paralytic and a final drug that stops the heart. But the state doesn't have to publicly reveal details about how it obtains the drugs because of a secrecy law passed by the Legislature.

    Many pharmaceutical companies have objected to the use of their products in executions.

    O'Dwyer tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette the board can subpoena witnesses and records, and it has the authority to reprimand doctors or revoke their licenses.

    http://www.4029tv.com/article/arkans...-drugs/9593223
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    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  2. #232
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    Arkansas Lege Takes Aim at Anti-Death Penalty Judge

    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (CN) – An Arkansas judge’s protest of the death penalty spurred the Arkansas state House to approve impeachment rules to spell out the procedure for removing an elected official from office.

    The state House approved the rules Wednesday by 73-13 vote after weeks of calls from Republicans to impeach Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffin.

    Griffin stepped into the death penalty debate on April 14 when he granted a pharmaceutical company’s request for a temporary restraining order preventing Arkansas from using vecuronium bromide in its executions.

    Just hours later, Griffen joined protesters in front of the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, strapped to a makeshift gurney, and sporting an anti-death penalty button. Photos show the judge lying on a cot appearing to be loosely tied down by rope while demonstrators around him carried opposing the state’s plan to execute an unprecedented eight inmates in 11 days.

    The Arkansas Supreme Court removed Griffen from the case and his order was lifted two days later. The state proceeded to execute four men in eight days before its supply of midazolam expired at the end of April.

    Griffen, 64, is being investigated for potential judicial misconduct and could face punishment by the state Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission.

    The judge has called on two disciplinary panels to investigate his own complaints of ethics violations against Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and the state Supreme Court. He has publicly defended his actions as free speech.

    State Sen. Trent Garner, R-El Dorado, called for Griffen’s impeachment this week, saying he is not fit to be on the bench.

    “The irony of Griffen calling for an ethics investigation against anyone would be laughable if this were not such a serious issue,” Garner said.

    “Because of his gross misconduct in office, I am calling for the Arkansas House of Representatives to bring an article of impeachment against Judge Wendell Griffen. He should never again be allowed to hold office of any sort in Arkansas. We as the General Assembly can remove the stain that Griffen has left on our judicial integrity,” Garner added.

    House Speaker Jeremy Gillam told The Associated Press there are no immediate plans to impeach Griffen, but that a procedure needs to be in place should the situation arise.

    The new rules, House Resolution 1001, give the state House the power to initiate impeachment proceedings “by filing articles of impeachment in the form of a House Resolution, co-sponsored by at least 34 members.”

    A committee would be tasked by the speaker to investigate the claims, and if impeachment is found to be warranted, submit the issue to the full House for a vote. A majority vote, 51 members, would be required to carry out the impeachment.

    The Arkansas Legislature has never impeached an official in the more than 140 years since adopting its state constitution.

    Judge Griffen in 2015 ordered Arkansas officials to recognize the marriages of more than 500 same-sex couples performed during a brief window the year before. His ruling, which also forced the state to extend married-couples benefits to the group, came weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide.

    Griffen criticized the state supreme court in a March ruling, for overturning his finding that concealing the state’s supplier of its lethal injection drugs was unconstitutional. He called the high court’s ruling “more than troubling, and more than shameful.”

    Griffen was elected to the bench in 2010 and re-elected last year.

    https://www.courthousenews.com/arkan...penalty-judge/
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    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  3. #233
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    Arkansas judge seeks to dismiss complaint over death-penalty demonstration

    LITTLE ROCK — An Arkansas judge is asking a disciplinary panel to dismiss a complaint concerning his participation in an anti-death penalty demonstration the same day he blocked executions.

    Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen is calling the investigation an effort to punish him for exercising his First Amendment rights. In a filing Friday he said that the demonstration didn't violate any judicial rules and was constitutionally protected.

    Griffen was photographed lying down on a cot outside the governor's mansion after he blocked Arkansas from using a lethal injection drug over claims that the state misled a medical supply company.

    Griffen has said he was portraying Jesus and participating in a prayer vigil. Photographs showed the judge wearing an anti-death penalty button and surrounded by people holding signs opposing last month's executions.

    http://m.arkansasonline.com/news/201...t-over-death-/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

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    Judge who blocked Arkansas lethal drug retracts probe plea

    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A judge who blocked Arkansas' use of an execution drug, effectively blocking the state's lethal injections, has retracted his request for a professional conduct investigation of state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and members of her staff over their response to his order.

    The attorney general's office sought Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen's removal from the execution drug case after Griffen participated in an anti-death penalty demonstration the same day as his April 16 order.

    Griffen asked for the investigation April 26, saying Rutledge's office didn't alert him it was seeking his removal from the case. The Arkansas Supreme Court lifted Griffen's order and disqualified him from death penalty cases.

    Griffen retracted his investigation request Friday, saying he found an April 15 email on his office computer that alerted him to Rutledge's intentions.

    http://katv.com/news/local/judge-who...cts-probe-plea
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  5. #235
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    Two recuse in ethics cases involving Arkansas judge who appeared at anti-death-penalty demonstration

    Judicial regulators said Tuesday that they plan to hire independent attorneys to oversee Judge Wendell Griffen's ethics complaint against the Arkansas Supreme Court, as well as ethics complaints the high court has made against the judge.

    The Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission is the constitutionally created agency responsible for investigating all misconduct complaints against state judges, but executive director David Sachar and his deputy, Emily White, said in a news release that they are recusing themselves from the competing complaints.

    Sachar and White are recusing on the advice of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Howard Brill, the news release stated.

    In a three-page letter, also released by the commission, Brill wrote that Sachar and White face potential ethical conflicts if they conduct the investigation themselves.

    "It is my belief that both of you are caught in an unacceptable dilemma with these competing allegations. Unique circumstances are present in this situation," the former chief justice wrote.

    "Accordingly, I believe that the commission, and indeed the state, would be best served if both withdrew from any major role in the investigation or prosecution of any charges arising from either of these referrals."

    Brill, a recognized authority on legal ethics, is an Arkansas law professor. He was chief justice until January, having served 16 months as Gov. Asa Hutchinson's appointee to finish the term of Jim Hannah. Hannah, who was chief justice about 10 years, retired for health reasons in August 2015 and died in January 2016.

    Dan Kemp was elected chief justice in November.

    The only two full-time attorneys on the commission staff, Sachar and White did not say who would select the outside lawyers for the Griffen cross-claims or how they would be paid.

    For 2017, the commission reports that it has a budget of $690,343, with about 70 percent of that appropriation, $481,753, paying the salaries of the six-member staff.

    According to the most recent numbers available, the agency received 253 complaints in 2015, which resulted in the sanction of a single judge in 2016. Ethics complaints are kept secret by law from the public and can be disclosed only if the complaint results in sanctions.

    Griffen filed complaints with the agency about the way the seven Supreme Court justices in April stripped him of his authority to hear capital-murder cases or related litigation and asked the discipline commission to investigate the judge for potential misconduct.

    Brill's letter noted that the commission has been at odds with the judge before, when Griffen was a state Court of Appeals judge.

    In 2005, before Sachar was hired, the commission concluded that it did not have the authority to sanction Griffen for discussing "disputed political or legal issues" because that speech is protected under the First Amendment.

    Now, the commission is being asked to investigate competing accusations that involve potential First Amendment questions, according to the Brill letter.

    Brill described several reasons why Sachar and White should bring in independent investigators.

    The commission is independent from the Supreme Court, but its function requires it to work closely on questions of judicial conduct with the high court, particularly the chief justice, Brill noted, referring to his own experience with Sachar.

    That "appropriate and necessary" communication between commission and court "would make it difficult for you to conduct a truly independent investigation," Brill stated.

    The unique nature of the complaints should also be considered, Brill wrote.

    The commission has investigated allegations involving individual justices in the past but never against all seven members of the court. The required probe, with "sharply conflicting allegations, and the scope of the potential charges, would likely make an investigation lengthy and difficult," according to the letter.

    "A proper investigation would likely require interviews, or even depositions, of members of the court and others," the letter states. "You would be hampered in conducting such interviews."

    In April, the justices -- in an unsigned unanimous order -- barred Griffen from deciding cases related to the death penalty. The order did not say why they were sanctioning him.

    Griffen complained to the discipline commission that the justices should have told him why they were penalizing him and should have given him an opportunity to explain himself before imposing any sanctions.

    The high court's decree was issued three days after Griffen appeared at an anti-death-penalty demonstration in front of the Governor's Mansion in March. Arkansas was planning to execute eight convicted killers over 11 days, an expedited rate required because one of its execution drugs was nearing its expiration date.

    But concurrent with Griffen's appearance at the demonstration, he temporarily barred the state prison department from using that drug, vecuronium bromide, in response to a lawsuit filed by the department's medical supplier. The company complained that a prison official had tricked it into selling the drug, then reneged on promises to return it to the company.

    The high court also overturned Griffen's temporary order, which would have forced the state to delay two planned executions.

    Ultimately, four inmates were executed before another of the execution chemicals, expired on May 1.

    Photographs from the Good Friday demonstration, which was organized by the New Millennium Church that Griffen pastors, show him lying on a cot with ropes wrapped around his legs and hands.

    He said he was attempting to show his solidarity with Jesus, whose crucifixion was capital punishment imposed by the government.

    Several legislators reacted angrily to the display, questioned Griffen's impartiality as a judge, and began preparing for potential impeachment proceedings.

    http://m.arkansasonline.com/news/201...sals-in-ethic/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

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    Arkansas panel ends investigation over execution drugs

    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas Medical Board on Thursday voted to end its investigation into how drugs used to execute four inmates in April were obtained after the panel’s attorney said he found no evidence that any doctors licensed by the state were involved.

    Last month, the board had said it was investigating the purchase of one of the drugs used in the state’s first executions in nearly 12 years. But board attorney Kevin O’Dwyer said Thursday that he didn’t find any evidence of a violation of the state’s medical practices act by a licensed doctor because none was involved in obtaining the execution drug.

    “There was no doctor that we found that was involved in procuring the drugs,” O’Dwyer told reporters after presenting his findings to the board. The panel voted to take the case “for information,” meaning it would no longer pursue the investigation absent any new information.

    Doctors can participate in executions under Arkansas law. But questions were raised in a court case about whether Arkansas improperly used a doctor’s name and license to purchase one of the drugs. The Department of Correction has denied those claims. O’Dwyer said the investigation focused on whether a doctor was involved in obtaining the drugs or allowed their license to be used to obtain them.

    “The very narrow investigation we would have was whether our licensee was involved, and he doesn’t appear to be,” O’Dwyer said.

    O’Dwyer said the investigation focused on the state’s purchase of vecuronium bromide, one of three drugs used in its lethal injection protocol. McKesson Corp. asked a judge to block Arkansas from using its supply of vecuronium bromide, claiming it had not intended the drug to be used for executions. The Arkansas Supreme Court in April stayed a judge’s order preventing the state from using the drug, and a lawsuit over the company’s claims is pending in Pulaski County court.

    Arkansas had originally intended to put eight inmates to death over an 11-day period in April, but courts halted half of the executions. The executions had been scheduled to take place before the state’s supply of midazolam, a sedative used in its lethal injection protocol, expired at the end of April. Arkansas has not obtained a new supply of the drug.

    The state medical examiner said Thursday that autopsies showed that midazolam levels in the dead inmates were so great that it was likely the men were unconscious and that their lurching and rapid breathing on the death chamber gurney were involuntary movements.

    “It’s sort of the body’s last stand — trying all-out to initiate some breathing response,” Dr. Charles Kokes said.

    His office tested only for midazolam concentrations in the men’s bodies. He said it is rare that anyone performing an autopsy to test for vecuronium bromide, and that because cells release potassium when they break down after death, results of a potassium post-mortem wouldn’t be meaningful.

    Kokes said that, based on witness statements and the lab results, “I did not see anything that caused a great deal of concern for me as something going awry.”

    A federal public defender, Scott Braden, told The Associated Press the absence of vecuronium or potassium testing makes it difficult to determine whether the state followed its own protocols. “We don’t know what went in when,” Braden said.

    Prison officials have said the drugs were administered in the proper order, with the sedative given first. A federal judge, acting on a request from the inmates’ lawyers, has ordered the state to retain material for possible further testing.

    http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-w...ecution-drugs/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

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    Special counsel named for cases involving Arkansas judge who participated in anti-death penalty rally

    By Associated Press

    LITTLE ROCK — Attorneys from Mississippi and Arkansas have been named by a judicial ethics panel as special counsel to handle cases related to a judge who participated in an anti-death penalty demonstration after he blocked the state from using an execution drug.

    The Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission said Friday that Rachel Michel and J. Brent Standridge had been named to handle the complaints related to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen. Michel is the senior staff attorney for the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance. Standridge practices law in Benton.

    The panel is investigating Griffen as well as his complaint against the state Supreme Court over its decision to bar him from death penalty cases. The commission's top two officials recused themselves from the cases in May.

    http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2...=news-arkansas
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Arkansas judge holds hearing on ownership of execution drug

    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A judge was hearing arguments Wednesday on whether a drug distributor can prevent Arkansas from using one of its products for executions.

    McKesson Medical-Surgical Inc. says Arkansas failed to say it wanted to use its vecuronium bromide in executions. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Alice Gray temporarily halted its use, but the state Supreme Court set aside the ruling. Arkansas subsequently executed four inmates in April, using McKesson's paralytic lethal-injection drug as the second step of a three-drug process.

    The issue went before Gray again Wednesday. In papers filed ahead of the hearing, the state said McKesson has "seller's remorse" and cannot reverse the 2016 sale.

    The state also wants to move the case to a different county. McKesson's lawyers say Arkansas is just seeking a more favorable venue.

    Arkansas' April executions were its first since 2005. Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson had set a particularly aggressive plan — setting eight executions in an 11-day period — because another of the state's execution drugs was expiring April 30. Stays and clemency rulings spared four of the men's lives, at least temporarily.

    The day before Arkansas' executions resumed, Gray effectively stopped the executions with a temporary order she entered amid the court fight over who was the rightful owner of the vecuronium bromide. McKesson said Arkansas had not disclosed its plans to use the drug for executions. It also said that if Arkansas used the product to kill inmates, the company's reputation and bottom line would be hurt.

    The state immediately appealed and the Arkansas Supreme Court set aside Gray's order, clearing the way for Ledell Lee's execution April 20. Three other executions followed over the next week.

    In the April hearing, a state prison official, Deputy Director Rory Griffin, testified that he deliberately ordered the vecuronium bromide from McKesson in a way that there wouldn't be a paper trail, relying on phone calls and text messages.

    Griffin said he did not keep records of his texts, but McKesson salesman Tim Jenkins said he did — and the messages from his phone included no mention that the drug would be used to put inmates to death.

    http://m.newsok.com/arkansas-judge-h...e/feed/1307342
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  9. #239
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    Once again these Circuit Courts are put in their place.

    Arkansas court halts order on execution drug label

    LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas' highest court on Wednesday halted a judge's order requiring officials to reveal more details about one of the drugs the state plans to use in a November execution.

    The Arkansas Supreme Court issued an emergency stay of a Pulaski County judge's order requiring the state to release the labels and package inserts for its supply of midazolam, one of three drugs Arkansas uses in its lethal injection process. State law keeps the supplier of the drugs secret, but Pulaski County Judge Mackie Pierce last week said that confidentiality didn't extend to manufacturers of the drugs. Pierce had given the state until late Thursday afternoon to release the information.

    The court did not elaborate on its reason for issuing the stay in its one-page order and said Chief Justice Dan Kemp voted to deny the stay.

    Attorney Steven Shults sued over the midazolam information after winning a similar case concerning information about potassium chloride, another drug the state uses in executions. That order was also stayed and is being appealed.

    Alec Gaines, an attorney for Shults, said he hoped the court would grant their request to expedite the state's appeal so it's considered before the scheduled November execution of Jack Greene.

    "Obviously we think there's a public interest the Legislature recognized when they passed this act and that's what we're interested in," Gaines said.

    The Associated Press has previously used the labels to identify drugmakers whose products would be used in executions. Pharmaceutical companies have objected to the use of their products in executions, and another case is pending before the state Supreme Court over a medical supply company's attempt to prevent Arkansas from using its supply of vecuronium bromide, another execution drug. The company, McKesson Medical-Surgical Inc., claims Arkansas misleadingly obtained the drug.

    Arkansas scheduled eight executions and carried out four in April before its previous supply of midazolam expired. They were the state's first executions after a nearly 12-year delay caused, in part, by drug manufacturers saying they didn't want their life-saving products used to take inmates' lives. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson last month scheduled a Nov. 9 execution for Greene after officials said they had obtained enough midazolam to carry out two executions. Documents released by the state show it paid $250 in cash for the latest supply of midazolam.

    Greene was convicted of killing Sidney Jethro Burnett in 1991 after Burnett and his wife accused Greene of arson. Greene's attorneys contend that he is severely mentally ill.

    http://www.couriernews.com/view/full...ion-drug-label
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  10. #240
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    Judge again asks complaint over demonstration be dropped

    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An Arkansas judge is again asking a disciplinary panel to dismiss a complaint concerning his participation in an anti-death penalty demonstration the same day he blocked the state from using an execution drug.

    An attorney for Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen on Friday renewed a request that the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission drop the complaint. Griffen was photographed in April lying down on a cot outside the governor's mansion after he blocked Arkansas from using a lethal injection drug over claims that the state misled a medical supply company.

    The state Supreme Court later lifted that order and barred Griffen from hearing any execution related cases.

    Griffen has said he was portraying Jesus and participating in a prayer vigil, and has said the complaint violates his constitutional rights.

    http://www.heraldcourier.com/news/ju...d2df2faef.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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