USA - Arkansas. Supreme Court upholds state's lethal-injection law.

Supreme Court upholds state's lethal-injection law. The Arkansas Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, today upheld the state's lethal-injection law as constitutional, removing a major roadblock to resuming executions that have been effectively on hold in the state for nearly a decade. The Court reversed Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell's Griffen's ruling (see February 14, 2014) that the 2013 law gave the state Correction Department too much leeway to decide what drugs to use and how they should be administered. Griffen had ruled in a lawsuit brought by nine death-row inmates. "The delegation of authority contained within Act 139 is not unfettered and is bounded by reasonable guidelines from the Legislature," Justice Karen Baker wrote in the court's ruling. "Therefore we reverse the circuit court's conclusion that Act 139 is unconstitutional." The law specified that the state kill inmates by using a barbiturate, but left it up to the state Department of Correction to decide which one to use. Arkansas has 32 inmates on death row, but hasn't executed an inmate since 2005. Legal challenges and a shortage of drugs used in lethal injections have effectively put the death penalty on hold. When executions could resume in Arkansas isn't clear. Each of the state's inmates is entitled to his own legal challenge, each on its own timetable, and federal agents seized Arkansas' drug supply in 2011 amid questions about the British supplier. Lawyers for inmates subsequently suggested using the seizure medication phenobarbital. Arkansas agreed, but by December 2013 said it would rewrite its protocol altogether. Movement was largely on hold while the inmates' challenge was tied up in court throughout 2014. The Legislature rewrote the state's lethal-injection law a year after the state Supreme Court struck down an earlier version of the law, also on grounds that legislators gave too much discretion to the Correction Department.