Arkansas court hears 2 death row inmates’ appeals

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Attorneys for two death row inmates who were spared from execution last year asked Arkansas’ highest court on Thursday to strike down a law that gives the state’s prison director authority to determine whether they’re mentally competent to be put to death.

The Arkansas Supreme Court heard appeals from convicted murderers Bruce Ward and Jack Greene, who argue the law giving that authority to Department of Correction Director Wendy Kelley violates their constitutional rights. Both inmates were granted stays last year so the court could hear their challenges to the law. Arkansas doesn’t have any executions scheduled, and the state is lacking two of the three drugs needed for its lethal injection process.

“The director cannot be considered a neutral decision-maker in this context,” John C. Williams, a federal public defender representing Greene, told the justices. “She is both a party and the judge. She is the person responsible for executing the prisoner and she serves the governor, who set the execution.”

The court last year halted Ward’s and Greene’s executions as it considered their challenge to the law. Ward was one of eight inmates the state planned to execute over an 11-day period in April 2017. Ward and three other inmates were granted stays. Greene was set to be executed last November before he was issued a stay.