SIX CONDEMNED treated fairly, state argues.

Quick pace of hearings takes away rights, inmates tell judge

The chairman of the Arkansas Parole Board defended Tuesday the expedited process in which six condemned inmates are being allowed to plead for their lives, as their attorneys sought in federal court to halt the executions.

Rebutting the inmates’ claims, lawyers for the state are asking U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. to throw out the case, describing it as an attempt to put off indefinitely the sentences imposed on men convicted of murder.

Faced with an expiring execution drug and meager prospects of obtaining a new supply, Gov. Asa Hutchinson scheduled eight executions to take place between April 17 and 27.

His order, handed down Feb. 28, set in motion the clemency process 48 days before the state’s executioners were set to begin lethal injections.

As clemency hearings were conducted near death row at Varner Supermax prison last week, attorneys for the inmates filed a lawsuit arguing the process violated the Parole Board’s own procedures, which establish a series of deadlines and hearing schedules in the lead-up to an execution.

The board’s recommendations are nonbinding, and the final decision granting clemency to any of the condemned inmates is up to Hutchinson.

“The state of Arkansas has done something unprecedented in the modern history of death penalty,” by scheduling eight executions across an 11-day period, said Julie Vandiver, the federal public defender leading the lawsuit.

“These guys will be executed without their full right to the clemency process.”

Represented in the lawsuit are the five inmates who already have had clemency hearings: Stacey Johnson, Ledell Lee, Marcel Williams, Kenneth Williams and Jason McGehee.

There is also Bruce Earl Ward, whose attorneys say is severely mentally ill to the point that he was unable to participate in the clemency process because of fears he would be forced to see a “shrink.”

A seventh prisoner nearing his execution date, Jack Jones Jr., has asked to join the case. Jones is set to appear before the Parole Board on Friday, after he was allowed to submit a late application.

Pointing to the decision to allow Jones a hearing despite missing the deadline, Parole Board Chairman John Felts said the board had been flexible with the inmates, given the circumstances.

The chief attorney for the state, Deputy Solicitor General Nicholas Bronni, said the inmates’ attorneys were “crying wolf” in their attempt to block the executions.

On the stand, Felts said he was presented with two options in scheduling the clemency hearings — hold them early, limiting the amount of time the inmates and the families of their victims would have to prepare; or hold them later, hastening the period for Hutchinson to deliberate the recommendations.

After consulting with an unnamed official in the governor’s office and his colleagues on the board, Felts said the decision was made to shorten the time on Hutchinson’s end.

Felts’ predecessor as Parole Board chairman, Leroy Brownlee, was called as a witness on behalf of the inmates. He testified that even with a shortened time frame to conduct clemency hearings, he would not choose to hold two in a single day, as has been the case for two pairs of hearings in recent weeks.

Brownlee said that would give too much work at once to the board members, who are expected to review the facts and consider multiple points in each case.

As attorneys unwound the state’s deliberations over establishing an abbreviated clemency process, McGehee and Kenneth Williams sat on death row, awaiting the Parole Board’s recommendation.

So far, the Parole Board has recommended to the governor that each of the applications be denied.

The seven-member board was scheduled to release its decision Tuesday, but Felts — who spent the day in Marshall’s courtroom — delayed the announcement until this morning.

The chief attorney for the state, Deputy Solicitor General Nicholas Bronni, said the inmates’ attorneys were “crying wolf” in their attempt to block the executions.