The state Legislature rewrote Arkansas’ law on lethal injections in 2013 after the state Supreme Court said the law gave too much discretion to the Arkansas Department of Correction.
Last year, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen ruled that the rewritten law, Act 139 of 2013, gave too much power to the Department of Correction to decide what drugs to use for lethal injections and how to administer them, in violation of the separation-of-powers doctrine.
Act 139 requires the Department of Correction to carry out death sentences “by intravenous lethal injection of a barbiturate in an amount sufficient to cause death,” without specifying what barbiturate must be used or in what precise amount.
