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Thread: Arkansas Capital Punishment History

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    Arkansas Capital Punishment History

    The death penalty was practiced in Arkansas even before the state was admitted to the Union in 1836. According to the Arkansas News, “during the American Revolution several members of the garrison at Arkansas Post were convicted of having plotted on behalf of the English to massacre all the soldiers at the Post. They were executed by a firing squad in New Orleans.” These executions mark the first recorded death sentences for crimes committed in Arkansas. As of 2010, the Arkansas criminal code provides for the death penalty or life without parole upon conviction of capital murder or treason. Those convicted of rape were also subject to the death penalty until January 1, 1976, prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Coker v. Georgia that a death sentence for rape of an adult woman was disproportionate to the crime and violated the Eighth Amendment.

    The first Arkansas penitentiary was authorized in 1838. Shortly thereafter, the state purchased ninety-two acres for $12 per acre and authorized $80,500 to construct the prison. It began operation in 1841 on the site of the current state capitol, a location that was then west of the Little Rock (Pulaski County) city limits. Convict labor was used to build it. There were relatively few beds because most of the convicts were leased to plantation owners, farmers, manufacturers, mining companies, and others who were responsible for their housing, food, healthcare, and security. The system not only paid for the cost of the penitentiary but also provided a surplus to the state treasury most years. However, over the years, a number of scandals arose over the treatment of convict labor. The most egregious was in 1880 when twenty percent of the convicts died while on contract. The practice finally ended in 1913, when the Arkansas General Assembly undertook a penitentiary reform effort. Another aspect of this reform was the centralization of executions at the State Penitentiary in Little Rock. Previously, prisoners were sentenced to death in the county where they were convicted. The law specified that electrocution was to be used to carry out the death sentence.

    Isaac Parker, a two-term Republican congressman from Missouri, was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant as the federal judge for the Western District of Arkansas in 1875. The district had jurisdiction over the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). During his twenty-one-year tenure, Judge Parker tried 344 capital cases and sentenced 160 men to death by hanging. Only seventy-nine were actually hanged; the rest died in jail, had their sentences overturned on appeal, or were pardoned. Parker favored the abolition of the death penalty but felt he had to adhere strictly to the letter of the law.

    The last execution by hanging occurred at the Paris (Logan County) jail on July 15, 1914. John Arthur Tillman had been convicted of killing his girlfriend, then putting her body in a well and filling the well with stones.

    The first man to die under the new law calling for electrocution to be used was Lee Sims from Prairie County. The last prisoner to be electrocuted was John Edward Swindler on June 13, 1990. Swindler was also the first execution since 1964.

    In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled capital punishment as practiced in Georgia to be unconstitutional (Furman v. Georgia), a ruling that effectively suspended capital punishment laws throughout the United States. The Arkansas Gazette reported on June 30, 1972, that “Old Sparky,” the chair used for electrocutions in Arkansas, had been found stored in a closet at Tucker Intermediate Reformatory, saying, “The diesel engine used to produce the high voltage for electrocutions is stored in the prison garage.” The death penalty was reenacted in Arkansas in 1977 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Gregg v. Georgia in 1976 affirmed the new procedures adopted by the State of Georgia.

    In 1983, the Arkansas General Assembly adopted lethal injection as the method of execution. Anyone convicted before that law was enacted could choose electrocution or lethal injection. Charles Singleton was the last inmate with that choice. He chose lethal injection and died on January 6, 2004.

    The Arkansas law provides that capital murder charges are to be tried in Circuit Court with mandatory review by the Arkansas Supreme Court. Conviction will result in one of two sentences: death by lethal injection or life in prison without possibility of parole. The trial is conducted in two phases—guilt/innocence and penalty. The jury must vote unanimously to impose the death penalty. Otherwise, the trial judge must impose life without parole.

    In 1993, the criminal code was amended to create a mitigating circumstance for mental retardation in capital murder cases. The prosecutor must prove that a person with an intelligence quotient (IQ) of sixty-five or less knows the difference between right and wrong. This change in the law occurred in large part due to public reaction to the execution of Ricky Ray Rector on January 24, 1992. Apparently not understanding his situation, Rector left a piece of pecan pie from his last meal and remarked that he would eat it later, after the execution.

    The governor has the power to grant clemency. Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, who declared a moratorium on executions when he took office in 1967, granted clemency to all fifteen men on Death Row on December 29, 1970. Clemency has been granted to a Death Row inmate only once since the death penalty was reestablished in 1977. Governor Mike Huckabee commuted the death sentence of Bobby Ray Fretwell on February 5, 1999. “I had rather face the anger of the people than the wrath of God,” Huckabee said of his decision.

    Records kept since 1913 show that 195 inmates have been executed in Arkansas: fifty-seven white males, one white female, 134 black males, one Hispanic male, and two male Native Americans. According to Marlin Shipman, “The decade of the 1930s produced more state-sanctioned killing in Arkansas than any other decade during the twentieth century. Fifty-three men were electrocuted in the state’s electric chair.” As of March 2010, forty-one men are on Death Row, which is located at the Varner SuperMax Prison south of Grady (Lincoln County).

    The death penalty continues to draw support from both political parties and a majority of the citizens of Arkansas. Bill Clinton returned from campaigning in the New Hampshire Presidential Primary in 1992 in order to sign the warrant for Ricky Ray Rector’s execution. However, that support had begun to decline at the start of the twenty-first century as questions arose about fairness in regard to race or ethnicity and the possibility of executing an innocent person. In fact, the 2009 Arkansas General Assembly established a Legislative Task Force on Criminal Justice to study critical issues regarding major felonies including capital punishment.

    http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.ne...x?entryID=4160

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    Prosecutor's Office Sees Most Capital-Murder Cases Since 1981

    The 12th Judicial District achieved an unfortunate distinction unmatched for more than 30 years, until a Fort Smith man was charged with capital murder last month.

    Until Thursday, three defendants faced capital-murder charges in the district in the same year for the first time since 1981, when the judicial district included both Crawford and Sebastian counties. Crawford County is now its own district, the 21st Judicial District.

    Both Michael Ray Underwood, 47, and Gregory Aaron Kinsey, 20, remained charged with capital murder, while Circuit Court Judge James Cox on Thursday acquitted James Saylor Herring, 35, of two counts of capital murder by reason of mental disease or defect.

    In 1981, five men faced capital-murder charges, with then-Prosecuting Attorney Ron Fields seeking the death penalty for each man.

    Fort Smith District Court Judge David Saxon, who was chief deputy prosecutor for the 12th Judicial District in 1981, said he believes he participated in the trials of all five men, but for sure remembers it as a bleak time.

    “The office was really small and everyone was jumping through hoops,” Saxon said. “Everyone lost a lot of sleep and everyone was on edge until they (the trials) were over. But it’s still not really over (at the end of the trial); then there are years of appeals.”

    Although the district covered two counties in 1981, the prosecuting attorney’s legal staff was much smaller then, five attorneys versus 14 attorneys now.

    When Saxon left the prosecutors office after 13½ years for the bench in 1991, the four men sentenced to death were still appealing their sentences.

    1981 Capital-Murder Cases

    Although five men were facing capital-murder charges in 1981, some of them committed their crimes earlier.

    Eugene Wallace Perry, 37, and 23-year-old Richard Phillip Anderson, were in custody on Jan. 1, 1981, and awaiting trial on two counts of capital murder in the deaths of Kenneth Staton, 50, and 24-year-old Suzanne Staton Ware, who were discovered in a workroom at Staton’s Jewelry Store in Van Buren on Sept. 10, 1980.

    A jury convicted Perry of capital murder and sentenced him to death July 27, 1981; he was executed Aug. 6, 1997. Anderson was convicted of the lesser charge of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

    On Dec. 10, 1980, Wilburn Anthony Henderson, 38, was arrested for capital murder in the Nov. 26, 1980, fatal shooting of 50-year-old Willa Dean O’Neal at a used furniture store in Fort Smith she operated with her husband.

    Henderson’s first trial ended in a mistrial on Sept 22, 1981. On Feb. 2, 1982, a jury convicted Henderson and sentenced him to death. On March 2, 1990, a U.S. District Court judge overturned Henderson’s conviction and sentence, citing “ineffective counsel.” The 8th Circuit upheld the judge’s ruling the following year.

    Henderson was retried and convicted and sentenced to death a second time on Jan. 29, 1992. He was executed July 8, 1998.

    On. Jan. 5, 1981, 37-year-old Thomas Winfred Simmons kidnapped and killed Fort Smith Police detective Randy Tate, 33, husband and wife, 21-year-old Larry and 21-year-old Jawanna Price, and 28-year-old Holly Gentry.

    On Aug. 19, 1981, a jury sentenced Simmons to death. The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Simmons’ final appeal on Sept. 27, 1990, and on Dec. 31, 1990, Simmons committed suicide in his cell on death row.

    On Oct. 15, 1981, Marion Albert “Mad Dog” Pruett, 32, was charged with capital murder in the Oct. 12, 1981, abduction and murder of 30-year-old Bobbie Jean Roam Robertson, who he kidnapped from a Fort Smith convenience store, although he remained at large.

    Prior to killing Robertson, Pruett killed his wife and then kidnapped and killed a bank teller in Mississippi. After he killed Robertson and fled Fort Smith, Pruett killed two men in Colorado.

    Pruett was returned to Arkansas in 1982, after he was sentenced to death in Mississippi and two consecutive life sentences in Colorado. On Sept. 9, 1982, Pruett was convicted and sentenced to death for Roberston’s murder. In 1983, he was sentenced to life in New Mexico for the murder of his wife.

    Pruett was initially sent to Mississippi’s death row, but his conviction there was overturned and he was sentenced to life at a new trial in the Mississippi slaying.

    He was returned to Arkansas on March 7, 1988, and executed April 12, 1999.

    ‘Death Is Different’

    Prosecuting Attorney Dan Shue was a first-year law student and an intern in the 12th Judicial District prosecutor’s office in 1981, and did legal research on the Wallace case. Now with almost 30 years of legal experience, Shue has participated in 12 death penalty cases, 11 as a prosecutor and one as a defense attorney.

    Although the legal staff has doubled in the prosecutor’s office since 1981, capital-murder cases nonetheless exert significant pressure on the office, Shue said.

    Since the U.S. Supreme Court imposed a de facto moratorium on the death penalty in 1972, which it then lifted in 1976, Shue said the phrase “death is different” is consistent throughout high court opinions since that time.

    While the state is required to provide the defense with any and all evidence that could point to the innocence of a defendant, in death penalty cases, Shue said his office goes above and beyond, proving any information to the defense relating to the case, even if it doesn’t have any relevance.

    “Every bit of information we get, we pass it on. We err on the side of giving (the defense) everything,” Shue said.

    Another legal difference in a death-penalty case is the number of pretrial motions.

    Normally a handful of pretrial motions are filed in any case, with one or two pretrial hearings if any are necessary, Shue said. In a death-penalty case, pretrial motions normally surpass 50 and multiple pretrial hearings are necessary.

    And although judges will sometimes allow verbal responses to motions in non-capital cases, all responses in death penalties cases from the prosecution and defense must be in writing, Shue said.

    Preparing and distributing juror questionnaires to prospective jurors ahead of jury selection also became normal practice in death-penalty trials in Sebastian County since they were first used in the 2003 capital-murder trial of Leonard Porter, who was sentenced to life in prison.

    Jury selection in death-penalty cases also differ from other murder trials, Shue said.

    In almost all other cases, the attorneys can ask a group of prospective jurors a group question. In death-penalty cases, jurors can be brought in as a group but each question my be posed directly to each prospective juror, Shue said.

    Of course the pressure created by the additional safeguards is secondary to the weight of the asking a jury to decide if someone should live or die, Shue said.

    While Shue sought the death penalty for Herring and filed notice with the court Aug. 22 he intends to seek the death penalty for Kinsey, Shue hasn’t reached a decision in the Underwood case.


    - See more at: http://swtimes.com/news/prosecutors-....cXwXfWps.dpuf
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    A century of death: 196 executions, 15 governors, and Arkansas’ deadliest day

    On July 25, 1902, Arkansas sent six men to the gallows — Lathe Hembree, Dee Noland, Tom Simms, Dave McWhirter, Jim Johnson, and Cy Tanner, or, as the July 26 edition of the Arkansas Gazette put it, “four negroes and two white men.”

    Almost 115 years later, the state of Arkansas has planned eight executions over a 10-day period in April marking an end to a 12-year dormancy brought on in part by a 2012 Arkansas Supreme Court decision that ruled the death penalty unconstitutional as currently practiced. Lawmakers have since worked out the kinks, and death row prisoners Don Davis and Bruce Ward will face lethal injection — the state’s method of execution — on April 17.

    Robert Dunham, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, recently told Talk Business & Politics the volume of planned executions are “unprecedented” in the modern era. He isn’t wrong when you distinguish what the “modern era” is. But the rapid administration of sentences now less than one month away is hardly unprecedented when looking at Arkansas’ capital punishment history.

    The July 25, 1902 executions were carried out in the cities of Washington, Chester Point, Arkansas City, Forrest City, and Van Buren, according to the Arkansas Gazette, which was obtained from Arkansas State Archives in Little Rock. Lauren Jarvis, archival manager for public services at the agency, could not verify whether the day was the deadliest in the state’s capital punishment history as “we do not have a comprehensive list of executions prior to 1913” and she did not know “of another department that has created a comprehensive list for this time period.”

    The Archive’s records end in 1964 while the Death Penalty Information Center has information from 1977 forward. The Arkansas Department of Corrections also has a listing that combines the two along with current death row inmates, but it does not have anything prior to when the so-called “modern era” of when executions began. There are lists of executions in Arkansas online that date back to 1901, “but there is not a lot of information” provided on the websites, and “I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the data,” Jarvis said. (For example, The Death Penalty USA website shows seven hangings on July 25, 1902, with James Kitts, a black man convicted of murder, also hanged in Desha County.)

    DEFINING THE ‘MODERN ERA’

    Arkansas has endorsed the death penalty for the better part of 200 years. Incorporated as a state in 1836, executions were already present during the American Revolution with several members of the garrison at Arkansas Post convicted of having plotted on behalf of the English to massacre all soldiers stationed there. The conspirators were executed by firing squad on an undisclosed date in New Orleans.

    For several decades prior to the modern era (which began in 1913), executions were carried out in the counties where the crimes occurred. Fort Smith-based “Hangin'” Judge Isaac Parker, who ruled as a federal judge for the Western District of Arkansas starting in 1875, was one of the most prolific facilitators of the death penalty, sentencing 160 to death during his tenure. About half (79) were carried out. The old way continued with brief overlaps to the modern era. The last to be executed in the county system was John Arthur Tillman for killing his girlfriend, tossing her in a well, and trying to conceal her body with stones. He was hanged at the Paris jail in Logan County on July 15, 1914.

    The end of this system was brought on by the Arkansas General Assembly. Disturbed by the high death rates associated with convict labor, lawmakers began a penitentiary reform effort that would, among other things, centralize executions at the State Penitentiary in Little Rock. On Sept. 9, 1913, a 21-year-old black male named Lee Sims — the first under the modern death row system — was executed for the crime of rape. He was also the first to die in the electric chair and was followed there on Dec. 12 of that year by another black male, 19-year-old Ed King. With few exceptions, the electric chair would be the state’s official method of execution until 1990.

    A TURBULENT START

    The paradigm shift for how the death penalty is administered in Arkansas began with turmoil at the top. In 1912, Arkansas Gov. Joseph Taylor Robinson was elected as No. 23 in the state’s history. He would have presided over the first centralized execution if not for the death of U.S. Sen. Jefferson Davis on Jan. 3.

    Davis had been reelected by the legislature for a term to begin on March 4, 1913. His death left a vacancy Robinson was eager to accept. On Jan. 27, 1913, only 12 days after taking the oath of office as governor, Robinson was elected to the post by lawmakers. He would serve as governor until the Senate term began, after which farmer William Kavanaugh Oldham would take over as acting governor for six days.

    When the legislative session closed on March 13, the Arkansas Senate elected Junius Marion Futrell as the new president pro tempore, but Oldham refused to acknowledge Futrell’s right as acting governor. The Arkansas Supreme Court would decide in favor of Futrell two weeks later on March 24. Even after this decision, turnover was incomplete.

    Futrell served only five months as acting governor thanks to a special election that slid George Washington Hays into the post on Aug. 6. The special election made Hays No. 24 and set him up as the first governor to preside over the new death penalty model. During his one term, nine prisoners were put to death — two rapists and seven murderers.

    Gov. Charles Hillman Brough took over after him from Jan. 10, 1917 to Jan. 11, 1921. Brough racked up another eight executions and was followed by Gov. Thomas Chipman McRae. Under McRae, the state execution business really picked up. In one four-year term, the Democrat had 14 men executed, all for the crime of murder. He was also a rare Equal Opportunity death warrant issuer when it came to race, issuing an even mix of seven for whites and seven for blacks.

    DEATH PENALTY BY RACE

    After launching the modern era with Sims and King, the state would execute two more black males for the crimes of rape and murder the following year before executing 19-year-old Arthur Hodges on Dec. 18, 1914. Hodges would become the first white person to receive the punishment and one of only 57 (29%) in the 104-year history of the modern system.

    The predominant burden of executions during that same tenure has fallen on blacks, who account for 137 of the 196 total inmates executed (70%). For a nine-year stint from 1926 to 1935, the state executed a string of 35 consecutive black males — two for rape and the rest, murder.

    This lopsided spree of executions began with Gov. Tom Jefferson Terral, whose two-year term began in January 1925. Despite his abbreviated time in office, he managed to authorize a total of 13 executions. Gov. John Ellis Martineau ramped this down considerably with only three executions, though he did not serve out his full term and left office on March 2, 1928, after being named president of the Tri-State Flood Commission. This was in response to the Mississippi River breaking free of its banks and covering over 13% of the state during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

    Martineau’s lieutenant governor, Harvey Parnell, followed him, serving from March 2, 1928 to Jan. 10, 1933. Parnell was the busiest governor to date when it came to signing death warrants. His tenure in office enabled the executions of 17 men, all of whom were African-American, making up about half of the 35-kill streak. The final seven would occur under Gov. Futrell, who was elected to two terms starting in January 1933 after his prior stint as acting governor.

    Futrell’s tenure was the most prolific to date with 21 executions. The run closed with the deaths of three black males from Drew County who were convicted of a homicide and killed on the same day of Dec. 11, 1936, which remains one of the five deadliest days in the modern era just behind Feb. 12, 1926, and Nov. 14, 1930 — dates on which four black males were executed on the same day.

    DEATH PENALTY DECLINE

    For many years, there was a decline in use of the death penalty in Arkansas. While influenced by the controversial 5-4 Furman v. Georgia decision, the state had largely curtailed the practice on its own. After putting eight men to death in 1960 and one in 1964, it would go on its longest dormancy period in history. Before 1960, a year seldom went by without Arkansas executing one or more inmates.

    This started to change with Gov. Francis Cherry, who took office on Jan. 13, 1953, and would serve only two years. He was the first since Martineau to serve two years or less. Until Cherry’s tenure, Martineau held the distinction among Arkansas governors who issued death warrants as being the one with the least amount of executions for the modern era at three. Cherry beat this by overseeing the execution of only one prisoner — a 50-year-old Native-American man from Garland County named Bill Jenkins for the crime of murder — before losing a runoff election to eventual six-term Gov. Orval Faubus.

    Gov. Faubus was elected to his first term in 1954. Seeing that Faubus was the longest-serving governor in the state’s history with 12 years in office, one might think him to be the most prolific warrant issuer. However, his administration would oversee the executions of only 16 men, or barely one each year, and he would also perform the last execution – Charles Fields in 1964 – prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision.

    Faubus screeched the brakes of the death penalty after a busy 1959 and 1960, during which 14 of his 16 warrants were carried out. Fields would be the only execution from 1960 until Faubus left office in 1967, and he was the last until former governor and 42nd President of the United States Bill Clinton resumed its use in 1990.

    Arkansas initially carried out executions on murderers and rapists. This practice would remain legal until another U.S. Supreme Court decision – Coker v. Georgia (1976) – ruled the death penalty was a disproportionate punishment for the crime of raping an adult woman and was therefore in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Fields was the last rapist to be executed in Arkansas and one of 21 rapists in the state’s modern era.

    EXECUTIONS, 1990-PRESENT

    Arkansas’ interest in the death penalty resumed on June 18, 1990. A comparatively busy execution schedule – at least compared to the previous 26 years – resumed with the death of John Swindler, who was the first prisoner to be convicted for the crime of capital murder, or any murder that made a perpetrator eligible for the death penalty. Each of the 26 prisoners executed after Swindler, and all 34 of inmates now on Arkansas’ death row carry the same distinction.

    With Swindler’s death – the last to be administered using the electric chair – then-Gov. Clinton oversaw two executions, but signed a third controversial warrant in the case of mentally impaired murderer Ricky Ray Rector. Less than a month after taking the oath of office as President, Clinton would return to the state during Rector’s execution, which officially occurred during Gov. Jim Guy Tucker’s four years in office.

    Clinton has received criticism in more liberal circles for allowing the execution of Rector to go forth as the convicted had shot himself in the head in a suicide attempt after killing a man in a nightclub and then shooting and killing Conway Police Officer Robert Martin in the aftermath. The resulting gunshot wound effectively lobotomized Rector, who famously ordered pecan pie as part of his last meal, then refused to eat it telling corrections officers he was “saving it for later.”

    Political opponents, who ordinarily wouldn’t have opposed the death penalty, also criticized Clinton’s return to Arkansas as a political move meant to invoke the image of a leader tough on crime.

    The circumstances of the case are noteworthy because after the death penalty resumed in the U.S. and, subsequently, Arkansas, appeals processes grew lengthier and more complex, bringing forth the valid question of which governor would get “credit” for an execution.

    For simplification, the 1990-present totals break down as such: Gov. Clinton (2, with an asterisk by Rector), Gov. Tucker (9, same asterisk); and Gov. Mike Huckabee (16 during his 10-plus years in office from July 15, 1996-Jan. 9, 2007). Huckabee also holds the distinction of being the only Republican governor to oversee one or more executions. The remaining 180 were signed off on by a total of 14 Democratic governors. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, said prior to leaving office he would have signed a law banning the death penalty outright. That said, he issued four death warrants yet to be carried out.

    The most recent inmate to be executed was 45-year-old convicted murderer Eric Nance on Nov. 29, 2005.

    The death penalty was temporarily suspended by the Arkansas Supreme Court on June 22, 2012, after justices ruled then-current execution law was unconstitutional because it allowed the executive branch to decide on some execution issues which were under the purview of the legislature.

    http://katv.com/news/local/a-century...-deadliest-day
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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