Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe recent­ly said he would sign leg­is­la­tion out­law­ing the death penal­ty if leg­is­la­tors were to send him such a bill. Beebe ran for gov­er­nor as a sup­port­er of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but said the expe­ri­ence of sign­ing a death war­rant for the first time caused his think­ing on the issue to change. ​“It is an ago­niz­ing process, whether you’re for the death penal­ty or against the death penal­ty,” the gov­er­nor said. ​“Everybody can claim they’re for it until you’re actu­al­ly the per­son who’s got to sign it.” Arkansas has not had an exe­cu­tion since 2005, and has only sen­tenced one new per­son to death in the last two years. In 2012, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the state’s exe­cu­tion law after find­ing prob­lems with how the lethal injec­tion drugs used in exe­cu­tions were selected.

(M. Stratford, ​“Ark. gov­er­nor revers­es course on death penal­ty,” Associated Press, January 16, 2013 — Link updat­ed 9/​15/​2015). See New Voices.

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