Arkansas attorney general wants judge to dismiss execution suit
LITTLE ROCK—Arkansas’ attorney general wants a judge to dismiss a lawsuit from nine death row inmates challenging the state’s new execution law.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel’s office filed paperwork in Pulaski County Circuit Court on Wednesday asking a judge to dismiss the prisoners’ amended lawsuit. The inmates argue that the state’s new lethal injection law is unconstitutional.
That law came about after the state Supreme Court struck down the previous law in 2012, saying that legislators had ceded too much control over execution procedures to correction officials. So, this year, lawmakers enacted a new law that says the state must use a lethal dose of a barbiturate in lethal injections.
However, the new law leaves it up to the Department of Correction to pick the drug.
The Associated Press first reported in April that Arkansas planned to use an anti-seizure drug called phenobarbital in executions, even though that chemical has never been used in a lethal injection in the United States.
Inmates sued, challenging the state’s new lethal injection law, along with the procedure that spelled out plans to use phenobarbital and the antianxiety drug lorazepam. The prisoners have since amended their lawsuit to limit their challenge to the new execution law, not the procedure, which the Department of Correction has said it plans to rewrite.
Department of Correction spokeswoman Shea Wilson said Thursday that the agency doesn’t have a new procedure yet.
A spokesman for the attorney general’s office didn’t respond to an email on Thursday. Jeff Rosenzweig, a lawyer for the inmates, declined to comment.
Arkansas last executed a death row inmate in 2005. Gov. Mike Beebe said last month he doesn’t have any immediate plans to schedule execution dates for seven death row inmates, even though the attorney general asked him to do so.
Beebe’s office has said the governor’s decision to hold off on setting execution dates comes as the Department of Correction plans to rewrite its lethal injection protocol and as the inmates challenge the state’s new lethal injection law.