"Summary judgment sought in lawsuit challenging lethal injection law," is by John Lyon for Arkansas News Bureau.
Nine inmates who are challenging the state’s lethal injection law have asked a circuit judge for summary judgment in their favor.On the same day the plaintiffs’ motion was filed, the state asked the judge for a summary judgment in its favor.
The plaintiffs’ motion, filed Monday in Pulaski County Circuit Court, argues that summary judgment is appropriate because the lethal injection law passed this year should not be applied retroactively against the inmates, all of whom were convicted for offenses that occurred before the law was passed.
The motion also argues that the act violates the doctrine of separation of powers by giving the Arkansas Department of Correction too much discretion in choosing and administering lethal injection drugs.
The state Legislature passed legislation that became Act 139 of this year in response to a state Supreme Court ruling that a 2009 lethal injection law gave the director of the Department of Correction too much discretion in carrying out executions.
The plaintiffs argued Monday in a brief in support of their motion for summary judgment that “the General Assembly did not meaningfully fix the constitutional problem in the 2009 Method of Execution Act; the 2013 Method of Execution Act still does not provide any reasonable standard by which the ADC is to select lethal injection drugs, inject lethal injection drugs, or administer lethal injection drugs.”
The plaintiffs are death-row inmates Jason McGehee, Stacey Johnson, Jack Jones, Bruce Ward, Kenneth Williams, Marcel Williams, Andrew Sasser, Don Davis and Terrick Nooner.
The state attorney general’s office on Monday filed a cross-motion for summary judgment arguing that implementation of the Method of Execution Act is not barred by the dates of the inmates’ crimes because the law is not a sentencing law.
The Russellville Courier posts AP coverage, "Lawyers seek ruling in execution lawsuit."
Lawyers for nine death row inmates asked a judge this week to deem Arkansas’ new lethal injection law unconstitutional because they say it gives too much power to the state’s correction agency.
The Department of Correction, however, asked a judge to uphold the law, arguing that it’s constitutional.
It’s not clear when a judge might weigh in on the matter, but a decision in the case could either speed up or further delay execution proceedings in a state that last put an inmate to death in 2005.
Arkansas doesn’t have executions scheduled for any of its 37 death row inmates — in part because of legal challenges. Gov. Mike Beebe said in June that he didn’t have any immediate plans to schedule executions, and spokesman Matt DeCample said that hadn’t changed as of Tuesday.
The inmates who are suing the Department of Correction say the execution law enacted this year violates the separation of powers doctrine — the same issue that led the state Supreme Court last year to overturn the previous law from 2009.
The “General Assembly did not meaningfully fix the constitutional problem in the 2009 Method of Execution Act; the 2013 Method of Execution Act still does not provide any reasonable standard by which the ADC is to select lethal injection drugs, inject lethal injection drugs, or administer lethal injection drugs,” the inmates’ lawyers wrote in paperwork filed Monday in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
Earlier coverage of Arkansas lethal injection issues begins at the link. Related posts are in the lethal injection index.
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