[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., PENN., VA., FLA., TENN., ARK.

[Rick Halperin]

September 12



TEXAS:

Wrongfully convicted ex-death row inmate Clarence Brandley dies, months after 
DA reopens case



Clarence Brandley, a former Conroe High School janitor, was in 1981 wrongfully 
convicted of the brutal murder of 16-year-old Cheryl Fergeson. Brandley spent 
nearly 10 years on death row before he was exonerated.

If the state of Texas had its way, Clarence Brandley would have died more than 
30 years ago.

Instead, the modest man from Montgomery County walked out of the Walls Unit in 
1990 and started a 1nd life after becoming, at that time, only the 3rd person 
released from Texas death row. He settled down in the country; he founded a 
church; he held odd jobs; and he grew older.

Finally on Sept. 2, the former janitor whose wrongful conviction for a brutal 
rape-murder of a teenaged student where he worked helped pave the way for a 
state compensation fund, died at the age of 66. It was not in a Texas execution 
chamber, but in the Kingwood Medical Center, where he'd fallen ill with 
pneumonia, his family said.

The timing must have seemed a bitter irony: After years of fighting for the 
innocence ruling that would win him recompense for his time behind bars, 
authorities had finally begun investigating the case again earlier this year.

"Texas did my brother wrong," said Ozell Brandley.

In a town plagued by a racist history - Conroe was the infamous site of the 
lynching of Joe Winters in front of the courthouse in 1922 - Brandley's case 
added to the growing national awareness about the possibility of wrongful 
convictions driven by racial prejudice, bad lawyering and shoddy evidence.

"There were a lot of things wrong with his case but it seemed like race was 
front and center," said Richard Dieter, former director of the Death Penalty 
Information Center. "There was this black janitor and a murdered high school 
girl and it eventually dawned on people that he was innocent and he'd been 
railroaded and framed."

The war veteran was convicted in the the 1980 rape and murder of 16-year-old 
Cheryl Fergeson. The Bellville teen was strangled at Conroe High School during 
a summer volleyball tournament 9 days before school was set to resume.

Brandley was one of the school's 5 janitors suspected in the case, but - as the 
only black man in the group - authorities quickly zeroed in on him.

"Since you're the n*****, you're elected," a Texas Ranger reportedly told 
Brandley.

The white janitors all gave alibis for each other, leaving Brandley to fend for 
himself. The case was before the days of DNA testing, and police never bothered 
to collect hair samples from the other janitors - even though it could have 
potentially matched a Caucasian hair found on the slain girl's body. The 1st 
trial ended in a mistrial, but the following year an all-white jury convicted 
Brandley and sent him to death row. In the years that followed, the case drew 
the attention of civil rights activists, who held rallies, raised legal funds 
and started the Free Clarence Brandley Coalition.

Still, he might have been put to death, but for the dogged work of defense 
attorneys - namely Mike DeGeurin and Paul Nugent - who kept the case in the 
courts up until the last minute. At one point, Brandley was just days from an 
execution when he won a stay.

"No case has presented a more shocking scenario of the effects of racial 
prejudice, perjured testimony, witness intimidation (and) an investigation the 
outcome of which was predetermined," State District Judge Perry Pickett wrote 
after a 1987 evidentiary hearing.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that his trial lacked even "the 
rudiments of fairness" and sent the case back for a new trial. But, by that 
point, key evidence had vanished and there wasn't enough to retry it.

The whole ordeal inspired a book - "White Lies" by British author Nick Davies - 
and later a Showtime movie. The media buzz helped shine a light on the fears of 
wrongful convictions.

"He was one of the early exonerations," said Robert Dunham, the Death Penalty 
Information Center's current director, "and it was at a time at which it was 
beginning to be clear that there was a significant risk that innocent people 
would be sent to death row if you had a death penalty."

Through it all - despite his claims of innocence - Brandley couldn't get 
authorities to clear him, so he was never able to get payment from the state's 
compensation fund.

"He couldn't quite understand why former Governor Rick Perry would do him like 
that," his brother said.

Years later, as he worked to pay off child support accrued during his time in 
prison, the police department's failure to arrest the right man still stung.

"All I know is that I'm the 1st person in the state of Texas to have been 
indicted for capital murder and go to trial within 90 days," Brandley said. "I 
participated in the investigation, gave my hair, saliva, my blood. And the 
medical examiner said that because no one asked him to preserve that, he threw 
it away. Threw it away."

The case was closed, and in 2014 prosecutors and police said they had no 
intention of reopening it.

Then, in January 2018, former Conroe Police Chief Charlie Ray died. And, when 
his relatives started going through his belongings, they found a box of trial 
exhibits in his garage.

Between that find and other requests for a renewed investigation, Montgomery 
County District Attorney Brett Ligon decided to call in the Texas Rangers and 
local police.

"We've asked Conroe Police Department to look through all the evidence that's 
left to see if there's anything that can be harvested, if there's anything that 
can be retested," Ligon said. "It's still an open case as far as the law is 
concerned."

Now, Brandley's life is a closed book. To DeGeurin, it's a personal loss.

"I spent a good deal of my life getting him off of death row," he said. "He was 
always a good person, (who) never bothered his lawyers."

Visitation is scheduled for Thursday from noon to 6 p.m. at Collins & Johnson 
Funeral Home in Conroe, and services are Friday at 11 a.m. at the New Loyalty 
Baptist Church in Houston.

(source: Beaumont Enterprise)

**********************

Once Condemned to Death Row, Anthony Graves Now Fights Injustice



The state of Texas has seen 13 death-row prisoners exonerated since 1976, the 
year capital punishment resumed after a four-year pause instituted by the 
United States Supreme Court.

The 12th of those exonerated prisoners, Anthony Graves, will visit the 
University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) Concert Hall on Wednesday, Sept. 12, for 
a free public lecture about his experiences of wrongful conviction, 
imprisonment, and eventual freedom.

"Anthony is a remarkably well put-together man," said Roger Barnes, professor 
of sociology and chair of the UIW Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. 
Graves spent 18 years in prison as an innocent man, 12 of them on death row, 
where he experienced solitary confinement, despair, and depression.

"How do you survive an ordeal like that?" Barnes asked rhetorically. "It's just 
a tremendous story."

Graves not only survived his nearly 2-decades-long ordeal, but surpassed it by 
becoming an advocate for criminal justice system reform and an author. His new 
memoir, Infinite Hope: How Wrongful Conviction, Solitary Confinement, and 12 
Years on Death Row Failed to Kill My Soul, details his life story from his 1992 
arrest through his exoneration in 2010.

He is now listed as one of the most notorious cases of innocents on death row, 
according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) website.

Being released after his 6,640-day odyssey was an "out-of-body experience," 
Graves said Monday in a phone interview from his home in Houston. He and 
advocates on his behalf had worked toward his release for years, suffering 
major setbacks and small successes, "then just like that, they gave me my 
freedom. I was not prepared for it ... so much had changed in the world."

For the first few days, "It was like walking in slow motion," he said. "It was 
surreal, but it was definitely something I was ready to embrace." He now says 
that the experience was his greatest challenge and that all other obstacles 
could be overcome.

What he knew from Day One in prison, he said, was that he "would come out here 
and advocate for a better criminal justice system, so there would be no more 
Anthony Graves,'" he said.

"I want the world to know we could do better," he said. "Our criminal justice 
system has now become the biggest criminal in our country, and it's time we 
address that issue."

Bettering the System

At one point in 2000, just as 2 court-appointed attorneys were assigned to his 
ongoing case, an execution date was set for Graves. He was granted a stay for 
10 days, during which, as he writes in Infinite Hope, "the proverbial gun was 
held directly to my head, but it didn't feel like a proverb. It was very real, 
and sickening ... all I could hear was a voice saying, Anthony Graves, you have 
a date with death in Texas."

When evidence exonerating Graves mounted and he was finally freed, Graves' 
prosecuting attorney was found guilty of "numerous acts of prosecutorial 
misconduct," having manufactured evidence, misled jurors, and elicited false 
testimony.

Not only did the false prosecution had grave consequences for an innocent man, 
it represented "a criminal justice system's nightmare," according to the 
Houston Chronicle.

Infinite Hope by Anthony Graves

In summarizing his case, Graves said, "you had a District Attorney who knew he 
had an innocent person and was still trying to kill him."

The issue goes far deeper, to an entire system that could allow such 
potentially fatal misconduct, he said. Since his release, Graves has 
established the Anthony Graves Foundation to work for the betterment of the 
criminal justice system, worked with the American Civil Liberties Union 
Campaign for Smart Justice, served on the board of directors of the Houston 
Forensic Science Center, and has testified to the U.S. Senate on the harms of 
solitary confinement, which he endured for 16 of his more than 18 years in 
prison.

"I think he can provide testimony to how, under the grimmest of circumstances, 
the human soul can still find a way to keep that hope alive," Barnes said.

By bringing in Graves as part of its UIW Distinguished Speakers Series, 
sponsored by the UIW College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Barnes 
continues his lifelong advocacy for abolishing the death penalty.

He pointed out that the recent Texas death row exonerations are only 13 of 162 
nationally since the 1970s. That number of false convictions, alongside 1,481 
executions during that period, equals a failure rate of nearly 10 %, which 
Barnes pointed out would be entirely unacceptable among other industries.

"I don't think we'd tolerate it if every 9 flights took off from the San 
Antonio airport and 1 went horribly bad," he said, or if 1 of every 10 patients 
of pharmacists died. "Yet that's exactly what our death penalty system does."

Before leaving office in 2003, Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences 
of all 167 prisoners on death row in his state.

Prior to being elected governor, Ryan had been a professional pharmacist, 
Barnes said. Ryan told him after making the commutations that in his former 
profession, he was not allowed to make any mistakes at all and that he simply 
could not abide the number of exonerations relative to executions.

"I wish we had more politicians in Texas that had that kind of courage," Barnes 
said.

Death of the Death Penalty

A recent Dallas Morning News commentary asserts that the death penalty itself 
might be dying. DPIC statistics and Barnes both agree.

Prosecutors tend to seek the death penalty less often, and juries return death 
sentences less frequently, Barnes said. "I think both those things are 
suggesting that people are starting to think we can live without the death 
penalty. We don't need it," he said.

The DPIC Fact Sheet reports that death sentences have decreased dramatically 
from a total of 295 in 1998 to 31 in 2016, and 39 last year. (This statistic, 
and those cited above, are available in downloadable PDF format on the DPIC 
website.)

The state of Texas maintains by far the highest number and rate of executions 
among all U.S. states, but Barnes hopes that could change.

The combination of information, awareness, new scientific methods for gathering 
and analyzing evidence, alternative sentencing to life without parole, and 
shifts in attitude, all have accounted for the decline, Barnes said. 
Eventually, the death penalty might disappear altogether, he said.

That's why UIW is bringing Graves in to speak, Barnes said, "to keep the 
conversation going, to keep the topic on the front page and in people's minds 
as best we can, to give them something to think about."

The Distinguished Speaker Series event begins at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 
and is free and open to the public. Barnes advises that people should arrive 
early if driving because parking can be an issue around the UIW campus.

(source: therivardreport.com)








NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Keep the death penalty: Sustain Gov. Sununu's veto



Some crimes are so heinous, so destructive to the fabric of civil society, that 
the only just punishment is death.

New Hampshire's capital murder statute is narrowly drawn to apply to only the 
most vile crimes, such as the murder of a police officer or judge, murder for 
hire, and murders committed during the commission of a rape, robbery, or home 
invasion.

The lone occupant of New Hampshire's death row shot a police officer to avoid 
arrest. Without the death penalty on the books, violent criminals who see the 
police closing in would have every incentive to shoot their way out.

Senate Bill 593 would abolish the death penalty in New Hampshire entirely. It 
passed the Senate and the House, but not by margins large enough to overcome 
Gov. Chris Sununu's veto.

In his veto message on SB 593, Sununu wrote:

"Abolishing the death penalty in New Hampshire would send the wrong message to 
those who commit the most heinous offenses within our state's borders, namely 
that New Hampshire is a place where a person who commits an unthinkable crime 
is guaranteed leniency."

New Hampshire has only invoked the death penalty once since the U.S. Supreme 
Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. It remains a rare but appropriate 
punishment, reserved only for criminals who have demonstrated a wanton 
disrespect for the lives of others.

We urge legislators to sustain Sununu's veto of SB 593, and keep the death 
penalty on the books.

(source: Editorial, Union Leader)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Report on capital punishment in Pennsylvania



There are 147 names on the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections list of 
people sentenced to death in the state as of Aug. 1, 2018. This number has been 
decreasing, not because people are being executed, but because they die while 
awaiting execution or get their sentences changed. In the past 56 years - of 
which the death penalty was in place for 50 - 3 people have been executed. This 
information comes from a report on capital punishment in Pennsylvania published 
in June by the task force and advisory committee of the Joint State Government 
Commission.

The committee examined the death penalty system in Pennsylvania. Among the 
topics it investigated were impacts of bias, quality of legal representation, 
and monetary and emotional costs of the death penalty. The report drew on work 
by the Justice Center for Research at Pennsylvania State University, the 
Interbranch Commission on Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness, and a committee 
of advisors.

Regarding bias:

Incorporating information from the earlier Final Report of the Pennsylvania 
Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System, which 
was commissioned in 1999, the task force and advisory committee report says 
that the race of the victim influences administration of the death penalty, 
regardless of the race of the defendant. Death sentences are more likely to be 
assigned if the victim is white than if the victim is black. When the victim is 
Hispanic, prosecutors are more likely to seek the death penalty.

However, the earlier report on racial and gender bias noted that "although 
Pennsylvania's minority population is 11 %, 2/3 (68 %) of the inmates on death 
row are minorities." According to the DOC current execution list, 74 of the 147 
people on Pennsylvania's death row are black.

The studies did not look at "possible bias associated with any other stage of 
the process, including arrest, charging and plea bargaining," so racial bias in 
other aspects of the criminal justice system could contribute to these 
disproportionate ratios. The report notes that the Justice Center for Research 
is seeking funding to further investigate the earlier phases of the criminal 
justice process.

To better understand how race plays a role in sentencing, the task force and 
advisory committee recommends that Pennsylvania adopt a proportionality review 
method to study whether death sentences are "excessive or out of line with 
sentences imposed in other cases" in which the convicts were not sentenced to 
death. The review might consider data such as defendants' gender, 
race/ethnicity, psychiatric state and educational background. The report says 
this practice "can reveal unfair, arbitrary or discriminatory variability in 
outcomes."

The two reports say that non-race-based differences also play a role in 
sentencing. Men are sentenced to death and executed at higher rates than women, 
and defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty if the victim is 
female. Death sentences are given more in some Pennsylvania counties than 
others (see page 261 of the report), and the task force and advisory committee 
says location is responsible for the most significant differences in 
sentencing. Additionally, the quality of defendants' legal counsel influences 
the outcomes of their trials.

Regarding quality of legal representation:

In general, capital defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty if 
they are represented by public defenders than if they are represented by 
privately retained lawyers, according to the task force and advisory committee 
report.

Public defenders and other forms of free counsel represent indigent defendants 
who cannot afford legal counsel. These indigent defendants account for 80% of 
capital defendants, according to the report. The report says that "some 
indigent defense practitioners failed to meet professional standards." This is 
partly due to other differences between Pennsylvania counties - there are not 
statewide standards for training indigent defense practitioners, so each county 
is individually responsible for training and supervising these defenders.

According to the report, "Some observers have argued that many of the lawyers 
who represent death defendants are unqualified to meet the heavy demands of 
capital cases; consequently, defendants receive poor representation, resulting 
in reversible errors and, in some cases, the risk of convicting an innocent 
person." Of the Pennsylvania inmates sentenced to death under the state's 1978 
death-penalty statute, 150 have had their sentences overturned as of May 2018 
because of ineffective counsel, says the report.

To address differences in quality of legal counsel, the report recommends that 
Pennsylvania establish a "state-funded capital defender office" to provide 
legal representation to people being tried in capital cases. The task force and 
advisory committee suggests that in addition to reducing errors, this 
organization of defenders would also save money by decreasing the number of 
convictions that have to be reversed in subsequent proceedings.

Regarding costs:

The report by the task force and advisory committee states that the death 
sentence costs significantly more than a sentence of life without parole. Much 
of this cost comes from the appeals process and expense of incarcerating people 
for long periods of time on a high-security death row.

A memo from Amnesty International Group 39 that is included in the report says 
that research done in multiples states has found that death penalty cases are 
"up to 10 times more expensive than other comparable cases." This memo also 
says that the appeals processes involved in death sentences cost millions of 
dollars.

However, the report and the memo it includes say that expediting the process 
would increase the risk of convicting an innocent person.

Comprehensive data on costs of death sentences versus life without parole 
sentences does not exist in Pennsylvania according to the report. To try to 
estimate the differences, report contributors sent surveys to Pennsylvania 
judges, prosecutors, public defenders and victim advocates. Though the sample 
size of completed surveys was small, the results did support the conclusion 
that capital murder cases are more expensive.

The report notes, "Some costs might be avoided if the prospect of a capital 
sentence induces one to plead guilty to avoid that sentence." However, it also 
says that survey responses showed that people plead guilty in non-capital 
murder cases, too.

In addition to monetary costs, the report found that death sentences can also 
have emotional costs. Of course, capital trials and death sentences emotionally 
impact the accused, but the report also investigated potential secondary trauma 
experienced by law enforcement officers, prosecutors, defense counselors, 
judges, jurors, correctional officers, people close to the victims, and family 
of the accused due to capital cases.

Report writers distributed surveys to judges, prosecutors, public defenders and 
victim advocates. Of the total responses received, more than 64 % "indicated 
that a typical, capital murder case causes more stress or anxiety than a 
typical, noncapital murder case." Over 70 % of the responses "indicated that a 
typical, capital murder case causes more emotional strain than a typical, 
noncapital murder case."

Contrastingly, the cumulative majority of responses showed that capital murder 
cases have no negative effect on health, consumption of drugs or alcohol, 
family or social life, religiosity, spirituality, or morality. In 2013, 
Pennsylvania State University and Department of Corrections staff administered 
a different survey to a small sample of State Correctional Institution Greene 
correctional officers and victims' and inmates' loved ones. The report says 
that "the survey revealed that in no instance was the capital punishment 
condition associated with statistically higher PTSD, depression or stress than 
the non-capital punishment condition."

The report also offers information and recommendations about several other 
aspects of capital cases. One recommendation is that judges should determine if 
defendants are intellectually disabled during the pre-trial stage rather than 
the post-trial one, saving time and money as the case would no longer continue 
capitally. Another recommendation states that severely mentally ill defendants 
should not be allowed to receive the death penalty, similarly to the conviction 
of intellectually disabled murderers.

Governor Wolf imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania in 
2015. It has been reported that he intends to maintain the moratorium until the 
recommendations in this report are addressed.

Joining us on today's Smart Talk to discuss the report and its findings and 
recommendations are Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman and 
Co-Director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation Marc Bookman.

(source: WITF news)








VIRGINIA:

Jury hears opening statements in police officer's death



It began with an argument between husband and wife over whether she'd attend a 
male dance revue. It ended with the wife dead, a police officer fatally wounded 
and 2 other officers shot and bleeding on a suburban northern Virginia lawn.

Jurors heard opening statements Tuesday in the death-penalty trial of an Army 
staff sergeant charged with killing his wife and 1 of the officers, who 
responded to the scene on her very 1st shift. The 2 other officers survived, 
but suffered serious injuries.

Ronald Hamilton, 34, an Army staff sergeant from Woodbridge, is charged with 
capital murder and other counts in the deaths of his wife, Crystal Hamilton, 
and Officer Ashley Guindon.

Prosecutor Brian Boyle told jurors in opening statements that Hamilton's 
actions reverberated beyond the Hamilton and Guindon families.

"By the time he was done unleashing his violence, a neighborhood was scarred, a 
police department was devastated, 3 police officers were on operating tables 
and only 2 would survive," Boyle said. "A son was left without a mother."

Boyle said Guindon and the other officers arrived just a few minutes after 
Crystal made her 911 call. Officer Jesse Hempen arrived first, and asked Ronald 
Hamilton to let him in to check on the welfare of his wife. As Hamilton shut 
the door, a 2nd officer, David McKeown, arrived with Guindon and tried to use 
his foot to force his way into the home. It was then that Hamilton began 
shooting at the officers with a military-style rifle. One of the officers, 
despite his wounds, was able to radio his colleagues a "signal one," meaning an 
officer was down. That prompted a massive police response.

Boyle said that when officers arrived, "bodies are littered across the front 
yard of the Hamilton residence. ... As the officers come in all they see are 
heaps of bright blue" from the officers' uniforms.

Defense attorneys acknowledged that Hamilton committed the shootings. Indeed, 
they offered shortly after Hamilton's arrest to plead guilty and accept a life 
sentence if prosecutors took the death penalty off the table. The prosecutors 
declined.

What is in dispute is Hamilton's state of mind at the time of the shootings, 
said defense lawyer Edward Ungvarsky, who told jurors that Hamilton lacked 
premeditation necessary to be convicted of capital murder.

Ungvarsky said the Hamiltons' marriage had long been troubled, and that a fight 
that day was precipitated by Ronald Hamilton's anger at his wife's plans to 
attend a Chippendales-style dance revue with her girlfriends. Ronald Hamilton 
struck his wife during the argument, and Crystal Hamilton called 911 for help. 
At that point, he knew that his military career, which depended on maintaining 
a security clearance, and his marriage could be over.

"He felt his world was crashing down around him," Ungvarsky said. "Passions 
erupted."

Ungvarsky said Hamilton fired indiscriminately at the officers as they tried to 
enter his home, but that he lacked any intention of killing them.

Jurors heard the 911 call Crystal Hamilton made, in which she said through sobs 
that her husband had slammed her onto the floor. That last thing heard before 
the call disconnected was her screaming "Stop!"

Jurors also heard a written statement from the Hamiltons' 13-year-old son, 
Tyriq, who was home at the time of the shootings. Both sides agreed to let him 
provide a written statement so he wouldn't have to testify in person.

The statement was read to jurors by Tyriq's maternal grandmother.

"I heard like 3 shots," Tyriq wrote in the statement. "Then my mom went 
silent."

Hamilton, dressed in his military dress uniform, did not speak during Tuesday's 
proceedings and often hung his head as his actions were described to the jury.

The trial is expected to last several weeks. Among those scheduled to testify 
are the 2 officers who survived the shootings, McKeown and Hempen.

(source: Associated Press)








FLORIDA:

Accused cop killer Markeith Loyd to face death penalty again, judge says



A judge decided Tuesday that accused cop killer Markeith Loyd will face the 
death penalty again.

Defense attorney Ted Marrero made another attempt at sparing his life, but to 
no avail.

Loyd is accused of killing his ex-girlfriend Sade Dixon, her unborn baby, and 
Orlando Police Department Lt. Debra Clayton.

Marrero claims that State Attorney Aramis Ayala should never have had the case 
taken away from her.

(source: WFTV news)








TENNESSEE:

POLL: Is the death penalty an effective deterrent to crime?



Tennessee is set to execute another death row inmate on October 11. Edmund 
Zagorski was convicted of robbing and killing 2 men in 1983. Their bodies were 
found in Robertson County.

Last month, Billy Ray Irick was executed for killing and raping a little girl 
in East Tennessee.

News 2 wants to know... Do you think the death penalty is an effective 
deterrent to crime?

vote: 
https://www.wkrn.com/news/poll-is-the-death-penalty-an-effective-deterrent-to-crime-/1434748167

(source: WKRN news)




ARKANSAS:

Griffen's lawsuit against high court dismissed by judge



Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen's federal lawsuit accusing the 
Arkansas Supreme Court of violating his civil rights by banning him from 
hearing death-penalty cases was officially dismissed Monday.

U.S. District Judge James Moody regained jurisdiction of the case Friday from 
the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, and on Monday officially 
closed the case at the appellate court's direction.

Griffen filed the suit Oct. 5, alleging that the state's high court went too 
far in issuing the ban on April 17, 2017. The ban came three days after Griffen 
signed an order preventing the state from using one of its lethal-injection 
drugs in response to a lawsuit by the drug's distributor and hours later 
participated in a Good Friday protest against the death penalty.

Moody, a former Pulaski County Circuit judge himself, dismissed the court 
itself from the lawsuit, citing sovereign immunity, but allowed the case to 
proceed against the individual justices, in their official capacities. The 
justices then asked the 8th Circuit to intervene, saying Moody was ignoring the 
law by allowing the case to proceed, and that his order would subject the 
justices to "an unprecedented situation" in which the members of a state's 
highest court must submit to depositions and other information-gathering 
requests about their internal deliberations.

On July 2, a divided 3-judge panel of the 8th Circuit agreed with the justices 
and took the rare step of ordering Moody to dismiss the case. The majority 
opinion noted that Arkansas law prohibits a judge from deciding any case in 
which he has an interest in the outcome.

Griffen then sought a rehearing by the panel or the entire 8th Circuit, but on 
Aug. 29, the 8th Circuit denied both reconsideration requests.

Once the case was back in the district court's jurisdiction, it could be 
officially dismissed, opening the possibility of an appeal. Asked if there will 
be any further action taken, one of Griffen's attorneys, Austin Porter Jr., 
said Monday, "We're still exploring that right now."

Meanwhile, Griffen, who is also a Baptist minister, is facing nine ethics 
charges brought by the state Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission over 
his public protests against the death penalty. The commission contends that 
Griffen "failed to uphold and promote the independence, integrity, and 
impartiality of the judiciary and failed to avoid not only impropriety, but the 
appearance of impropriety."

(source: nwaonline.com)