LITTLE ROCK — Deputy Attorney General Dennis Hansen told legislators Tuesday that his office is rewriting the death-penalty statute to answer a state Supreme Court ruling this summer that said the law gave too much discretion to the Department of Correction to carry out executions.
Hansen told the state Senate Judiciary Committee that his office would present new language to the Legislature “fairly quickly” so the law can be amended during the 2013 session.
“We’re working with the Department of Correction to come up with one that we think will best meet the rulings of both the Arkansas state Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court,” Hansen said.
Hansen and Correction Department Director Ray Hobbs both attended Tuesday’s hearing.
On June 22, the state Supreme Court struck down the 2009 Method of Execution Act, Act 1296, saying it had “abdicated its responsibility and passed to the executive branch, in this case the [Department of Correction], the unfettered discretion to determine all protocol and procedures, most notably the chemicals to be used, for state execution.”
In the 5-2 decision, Justice Jim Gunter wrote that it is the duty of the Legislature to tell the department how to carry out executions, but that too much was left to the department’s discretion, vio- lating the state constitution’s separation-of-powers doctrine.
The lawsuit that led to the decision was originally filed in 2010 by Jack Harold Jones Jr., a convicted murderer who was sentenced to death in April 1996. Jones raped and killed Bald Knob bookkeeper Mary Phillips in 1995 and savagely beat Phillips’ 11-year-old daughter, Lacy. Legal challenges have delayed his execution.
Nine other inmates later joined Jones’ suit challenging the law, which stated that the death sentence was to be carried out by injecting “one or more chemicals, as determined in kind and amount in the discretion of the Director of the Department of Correction.”
There are 37 inmates on Arkansas’ death row, according to information provided by the department.
Hobbs told legislators that the department has been handcuffed by the decision, preventing them from carrying out executions until the language in the law is addressed by the Legislature.
Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, a Little Rock Republican who is the incoming chairman of the committee, agreed that the law did appear vague but said it would be difficult for the Legislature to provide specific “chemical formulations” and keep up to date with new technologies or procedures.
Hutchinson asked if there were national guidelines or other state laws that the Legislature could use in drafting the appropriate legislation.
“A number of those statutes are virtually identical to the one that we had in place and had been upheld by the courts in other states, but nevertheless our court said that the guidance provided wasn’t sufficient,” Hansen said.
He added that “it may be sufficient” to remove instances that gave discretion to the Department of Correction and “fall back” on the existing list of chemicals that may be used.
Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow, said after the meeting that it was up to the Legislature to be more specific in the statute and that legislators would have to address it during the session.
“If we’re going to have a death penalty in Arkansas, it needs to be operational and effective and [be able to] pass constitutional muster,” Rapert said.
In other business, Veter Howard, chief deputy director of the Department of Community Correction, presented information on how the group has implemented the provisions of Act 570 of 2011, which changed sentencing, probation and parole guidelines in an attempt to reduce the state’s prison-population growth rate.
Howard and Dan Roberts, deputy director for parole and probation, told legislators that the number of state inmates being held temporarily in county jails was down to 261 from more than 2,000 when the act was implemented.
Howard said a three-year study of the act’s effect on recidivism would not be completed until after the 2013 session, but that first-year information would be made available this month.
Rapert asked if the number of probation officers had increased to handle the influx of offenders into the department’s programs.
Roberts said the department employs 302 officers who have varying caseloads depending on whether they monitored low-, medium- or high-risk offenders. The department hopes to hire 32 additional officers to reduce officers’ caseloads. The money is included in the governor’s budget proposal.
The sentencing, probation and parole overhaul has been well received, Roberts said.
“Anytime there’s change, there’s going to be a little stress in the field,” Roberts said. “But the vast majority of the officers who I talk to every day are happy with the direction that we’re going in.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/12/2012