Inmates try variety of arguments to avoid death

Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

Arkansas’ plan to resume capital punishment in nearly 12 years seemed on its way to being blocked by rulings related to the lethal drugs it wants to use, but in the end arguments over the inmates’ mental health led to them being spared.

As state officials prepare to carry out a double execution Thursday ahead of a drug expiration deadline and despite the setback the U.S. Supreme Court delivered late Monday, lawyers for those condemned men look to be taking a different approach: claiming the prisoners actually are innocent.

One of the inmates set to die, Stacey Johnson, says advanced DNA techniques could show that he didn’t kill Carol Heath, a 25-year-old mother of two, in 1993 at her DeQueen apartment. Meanwhile, Ledell Lee argued unsuccessfully Tuesday in a Little Rock courtroom that he be given a chance to test blood and hair evidence that could prove he didn’t beat 26-year-old Debra Reese to death during a 1993 robbery in Jacksonville. An appeal is possible.

Lawyers are known to make multiple arguments to save their clients’ lives in the final hours. The state and its lawyers say the inmates are seeking any legal approach they can find in their efforts to avoid death.

“It is understandable that the inmates are taking every step possible to avoid the sentence of the jury; however, it is the court’s responsibility to administer justice and bring conclusion to litigation,” Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Tuesday in an emailed statement. “It is that process that we are seeing played out day by day, and we expect it to continue.

The Republican governor had set an aggressive schedule of eight executions by the end of April, when the state’s supply of midazolam, a key lethal injection drug, expires. If the state had moved ahead with its 11-day execution plan, it would have been the most inmates put to death by any state in such a short period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Don Davis and Bruce Ward were supposed to be the first two executed. They won stays from the Arkansas Supreme Court on Monday after lawyers argued their mental health issues were similar enough to those raised in an Alabama case going before the U.S. Supreme Court next week.

The execution of a third inmate, Jason McGehee, had been set for April 27, but a federal judge put it on hold earlier this month, saying McGehee was entitled to a 30-day comment period after the Arkansas Parole Board told the governor that the inmate’s clemency request had merit.