Arkansas AG: No execution letters until case decided

The Associated Press

The Arkansas attorney general’s office will wait for a state Supreme Court decision on lethal injection before naming any other death-row inmates eligible for execution, officials said Friday.

Chief Deputy Attorney General Justin Allen said that Attorney General Dustin McDaniel decided to hold off on naming any inmates until a ruling is issued in a case brought by death-row inmate Frank Williams Jr. Allen said if state prosecutors moved forward and asked for execution dates, inmates’ lawyers likely would file suits similar to Williams’ lawsuit.

“We just know that’s going to happen,” Allen said. “Instead of setting a couple dates and have them canceled again, we’re just going to wait.”

In Arkansas, the attorney general sends a letter to the governor when death-row inmates exhaust their court appeals. The governor then signs a death warrant, setting an execution date for the condemned inmate.

Williams, 42, faced a Sept. 9 execution date, but received a stay after his federal public defenders argued recent changes to the state’s lethal-injection protocol shouldn’t have been made without a public review. The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case, but has yet to set a date for oral arguments.

Williams was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1992 slaying of Lafayette County farmer Clyde Spence.

McDaniel’s decision comes as another death-row inmate, Jack Harold Jones Jr., saw his last stay be eliminated by a federal appeals court. Jones, 44, was sentenced to death for the rape and slaying of Bald Knob bookkeeper Mary Phillips and an attack on her 11-year-old daughter.

Jeff Rosenzweig, Jones’ lawyer, said the decision wasn’t surprising.

“Until the Supreme Court rules on that issue, a stay would probably be inevitable while there’s a live case in controversy pending,” Rosenzweig said.

Matt DeCample, a spokesman for Gov. Mike Beebe, said the governor supported McDaniel’s decision.

“There appears to be unresolved legal issues,” DeCample said. “Until they make a ruling, we support (McDaniel’s) decision to hold off for now.”

Jones told the state Parole Board last year he strangled Phillips first with his hands and later with a cord of a nearby coffee maker. Jones strangled and beat Phillips’ daughter so severely that police officers arriving the next day thought she was already dead. The daughter awoke only as an officer took a photograph of her.

In 2005, Jones pleaded guilty to the 1991 rape and slaying of a Pennsylvania woman who was visiting Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He received a life sentence in the death of Lorraine Barrett, 32, who lived in the Pittsburgh area.

For more information see Saturday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.