Arkansas Supreme Court Strikes Down State’s Death-Penalty Mental Competency Law

A divided Arkansas Supreme Court has struck down the state’s death-penalty mental competency law, holding that statutory provisions giving the state’s prison director exclusive authority to determine a death-row prisoner’s competency to be executed violate due process. The 4-3 rulings on November 1, 2018 were a victory for two mentally ill death-row prisoners, Bruce Ward (pictured, left) and Jack Greene (pictured, right), who had come within days of execution in 2017. The appeals court directed the Arkansas trial courts to conduct hearings to determine the men’s mental status and their competency to be executed.

Ward, who has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was scheduled to be executed on Monday, April 17, 2017. A Pulaski County trial court had denied his motion for a hearing to determine his competency to be executed, saying it had no legal authority to rule on the issue. The state supreme court stayed Ward’s execution on April 14 to decide whether counsel should be permitted to litigate Ward’s competency to be executed. Greene suffers from psychotic delusions and, according to court pleadings, believes that his attorneys and prison officials are conspiring to torture him. His delusions include that “his spinal cord has been removed and his central nervous system has been destroyed,” in response to which, his lawyers say, Greene “constantly twist[s] his body and stuff[s] his ear and nose with toilet paper to cope with the pain.” Arkansas had scheduled his execution for November 9, but the Arkansas Supreme Court granted a stay on November 7 to resolve whether the state’s mechanism to determine competency was constitutional.

The court’s two rulings determined that Arkansas’s competency law violated the two prisoners’ rights to due process under both the United States and Arkansas constitutions. The statute, Chief Justice John Kemp wrote, failed to “provide for an evidentiary hearing that comports with the fundamental principles of due process,” as set forth in the U.S. Supreme Court’s competency decisions in Ford v. Wainwright and Panetti v. Quarterman. John C. Williams, a federal public defender representing the inmates, told Associated Press that the defense was “pleased the court held the statute unconstitutional, and we look forward to litigating our clients’ competence.”

Ward also argued that his execution after a quarter century in death-row solitary confinement would constitute cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. The court rejected that claim.

(John Moritz, Arkansas death-penalty law ruled illegal; competency determination denies due process, justices find, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, November 2, 2018; Max Brantley, Split Supreme Court allows condemned inmates’ competency challenges to go forward, Arkansas Times, November 1, 2018; Thomas DeLorenzo, Arkansas Supreme Court strikes down mental competency section of state’s death penalty, The Jurist, November 1, 2018; Andrew DeMillom, Arkansas court strikes mental competency law for executions, Associated Press, November 1, 2018.) Read the Arkansas Supreme Court decisions in the cases of Ward and Greene. See Mental Illness.