Yesterday, the Arkansas Supreme Court issued its opinion that the state law providing for capital punishment in the State of Arkansas is unconstitutional. Which means that the men setting on Arkansas’ Death Row must be grateful to the 10 men who filed this appeal and drove this issue to the highest court in that state.
Their winning argument? It’s up to the state legislature, not the system of prisons, to decide how executions are carried out. This isn’t a ruling that ends the death penalty in Arkansas; instead, it is halting executions because of the manner in which they are being done (another lethal injection issue).
Read the opinion in Hobbs v Jones (and the dissents) here.