Arkansas

Timeline

1820 – First known exe­cu­tion in Arkansas, Thomas Dickinson hung for murder.

1913 – Arkansas replaces hang­ing with elec­tro­cu­tion as its method of execution.

1967 – Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller declares a mora­to­ri­um on executions

1970 – Governor Rockefeller grants clemen­cy to all 15 men on death row

1972 – The Supreme Court strikes down the death penal­ty in Furman v. Georgia.

1973 – Arkansas pass­es a law rein­stat­ing capital punishment.

1976 – The Supreme Court rein­states the death penal­ty when it upholds Georgia’s statute in Gregg v. Georgia.

1990 – Arkansas resumes exe­cu­tions; aban­dons elec­tro­cu­tion in favor of lethal injec­tion as its method of execution.

1992 – Presidential can­di­date and Governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton leaves the cam­paign trail to over­see the exe­cu­tion of Ricky Ray Rector, who was intellectually disabled.

2001 — Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee signs a law pro­vid­ing pro­vid­ing for Defense Counsel Standards and DNA testing.

2011 – Amid a nation­wide exe­cu­tion drug short­age, Arkansas’ sup­ply of one exe­cu­tion drug is seized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

2012 – The Arkansas Supreme Court finds part of the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because it del­e­gates too much author­i­ty to the Department of Corrections in car­ry­ing out executions.

2013 – The Arkansas leg­is­la­ture rewrites its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col and pass­es a law shield­ing the iden­ti­ties of its exe­cu­tion drug sup­pli­ers; the Department of Corrections announces its inten­tion to use phe­no­bar­bi­tal for executions.

2015 – Arkansas Supreme Court upholds new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col; Governor Asa Hutchinson sets dates for eight exe­cu­tions between October 2015 and January 2016, with four sets of dou­ble exe­cu­tions sched­uled one month apart. The Arkansas Supreme Court impos­es a stay on exe­cu­tions while eval­u­at­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the 2013 secrecy law.

2016 – Arkansas Supreme Court upholds Arkansas secre­cy law. The U.S. Supreme Court declines to review Arkansas death-row pris­on­ers’ chal­lenge to the state’s execution protocol.

2017 – Governor Asa Hutchinson sets dates for eight exe­cu­tions to be car­ried out in an unprece­dent­ed four sets of dou­ble exe­cu­tions over an 11-day peri­od in April. Four are ulti­mate­ly car­ried out and four are stayed. Executioners botched the exe­cu­tions of Jack Jones and Kenneth Williams.

2018 — Arkansas Supreme Court strikes down the state’s death penal­ty men­tal com­pe­ten­cy law for vio­lat­ing due process. The law pre­vi­ous­ly gave the state’s prison direc­tor exclu­sive author­i­ty to deter­mine a death row pris­on­er’s com­pe­ten­cy to be executed.

2020 — U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker rejects a claim, filed on behalf of sev­en­teen inmates, that use of mida­zo­lam in lethal injec­tion vio­lates the con­sti­tu­tion­al ban on cru­el and unusual punishment.

2022 — A fed­er­al appel­late court upholds the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the three-drug lethal injec­tion prot­col in Arkansas.

Famous Cases

Ricky Ray Rector

Rector was exe­cut­ed in 1992 for the mur­der of police offi­cer Robert Martin. After shoot­ing Officer Martin, Rector shot him­self in the head in an appar­ent suicide attempt.

The sui­cide attempt destroyed his frontal lobe and left him severe­ly brain dam­aged, ren­der­ing him inca­pable of under­stand­ing his pend­ing exe­cu­tion. For his last meal, he left his pecan pie on the side of the tray, telling the guards who had come to take him to the exe­cu­tion cham­ber that he was sav­ing it ​“for later.”

It took a team of five exe­cu­tion­ers over 50 min­utes to find a suit­able vein in which to inject the lethal cock­tail. During that time, wit­ness­es heard con­tin­ued moan­ing from the inmate as he was jabbed over and over again with the execution needle.

Despite Rector’s inabil­i­ty to under­stand the crim­i­nal charges filed against him or his result­ing death sen­tence, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton made of point of return­ing to Arkansas and over­see­ing Rector’s exe­cu­tion dur­ing his Presidential cam­paign, in order to show the elec­torate that he was not soft on crime.

Barry Fairchild

In 1995 Barry Lee Fairchild was exe­cut­ed for the 1983 mur­der of Marjorie Mason. Ms. Mason had been raped and shot twice in the head. Acting on a tip from an unnamed infor­mant now known to be inac­cu­rate, the police sur­round­ed Barry Fairchild and released their dog on him. He was bit­ten on the neck, side, and head. After being treat­ed for the dog bites, he was ques­tioned through­out the night and gave two conflicting confessions.

During his tri­al, Fairchild recant­ed his con­fes­sions and tes­ti­fied that Sheriff Tommy Robinson beat him and threat­ened to kill him if he did not con­fess. He tes­ti­fied that when he told the police he knew noth­ing of the crime, the sher­iff hit him on the head with a shot­gun and anoth­er man kicked him in the stom­ach. He said he had been rehearsed for twen­ty min­utes on what to say on tape.

No phys­i­cal evi­dence ever linked Fairchild to Mason’s rape or mur­der: no fin­ger­prints on her belong­ings could be matched to his; a hat found near the crime scene and iden­ti­fied by wit­ness­es as Fairchild’s con­tained no strands of his hair; semen found on the victim’s body was incon­sis­tent with his blood type. Nonetheless, the jury found Fairchild guilty of rape and murder.

During sub­se­quent appeals, thir­teen men pub­licly dis­closed that they too had been detained for ques­tion­ing about the Mason mur­der and were tor­tured. They tes­ti­fied that they had been sub­ject­ed to vio­lent beat­ings, and that guns had been put to their heads while they were told to con­fess. One of these men report­ed that he heard deputies in the next room tor­ture Fairchild into confessing.

During the fourth peti­tion the judge found that the evi­dence showed that Fairchild was ​“not the one who shot and killed Ms. Mason,” but was an accom­plice. As such, the death sen­tence was reversed, and a sen­tence of life in prison with­out parole was imposed in its stead.

In 1994, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the low­er court’s deci­sion, and with­out refut­ing the legal con­clu­sion that the Arkansas cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statute had been vio­lat­ed, the Appellate Court held that it was too late to make this argu­ment. The death sen­tence was rein­stat­ed, and Fairchild became the eleventh Arkansan put to death under the state’s mod­ern cap­i­tal punishment statute.

Damien Echols

Damien Echols was one of the ​“West Memphis Three,” wrong­ly con­vict­ed in 1994 of the mur­ders of three 8‑year old Cub Scouts the year before. Echols, who had been sen­tenced death, and his co-defen­dants Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, who received life sen­tences, entered no-con­test pleas in 2011 exchange for their free­dom, after new­ly avail­able DNA evi­dence failed match any of them to the crime scene. The three were con­vict­ed after Misskelley, who is bor­der­line intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, false­ly con­fessed to the crimes fol­low­ing near­ly 12 hours of inter­ro­ga­tion. Misskelley impli­cat­ed Echols and Baldwin, although por­tions of his con­fes­sion did not match details of the case.

Kenneth Williams

On April 27, 2017, Kenneth Williams was exe­cut­ed dur­ing the course of a week in which eight exe­cu­tions had been sched­uled to be car­ried before the state’s sup­ply of the con­tro­ver­sial exe­cu­tion drug, mida­zo­lam, expired. Media wit­ness­es report­ed observ­ing Williams ​“cough­ing, con­vuls­ing, lurch­ing, jerk­ing, with sound that was audi­ble even with the micro­phone turned off” dur­ing his exe­cu­tion. Associated Press reporter Kelly Kissel said ​“Williams’ body jerked 15 times in quick suc­ces­sion — lurch­ing vio­lent­ly against the leather restraint across his chest.” Kissel, who has wit­nessed ten exe­cu­tions, not­ed that “[t]his is the most I’ve seen an inmate move three- or four-minutes in.”

Notable Exonerations

Rickey Dale Newman

An Arkansas tri­al judge dis­missed all charges against for­mer death-row pris­on­er, Rickey Dale Newman on October 11, 2017, exon­er­at­ing the intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled man after near­ly 16 years impris­on­ment for a February 2001 mur­der. The for­mer Marine also was seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill and home­less — suf­fer­ing from major depres­sion and chron­ic post­trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der from child­hood abuse — at the time he was charged with mur­der­ing Marie Cholette. After coer­cive inter­ro­ga­tions by police, Newman came to believe he had com­mit­ted the mur­der and false­ly con­fessed, although the phys­i­cal evi­dence con­tra­dict­ed his con­fes­sion. The court found him com­pe­tent to stand tri­al per­mit­ted him to rep­re­sent him­self. Following a one-day tri­al in which Newman told the jury he had com­mit­ted the mur­der and asked them to impose the death penal­ty, he was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in June 2002. No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked Newman to the mur­der and DNA evi­dence on the blan­ket on which the vic­tim was found exclud­ed Newman. Nonetheless, a pros­e­cu­tion expert false­ly tes­ti­fied that hair found on Newman’s cloth­ing had come from the victim.

Newman sub­se­quent­ly sought to waive his appeals and be exe­cut­ed. However, four days before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion on July 26, 2005, he per­mit­ted fed­er­al pub­lic defend­ers to seek a stay of exe­cu­tion. His lawyers obtained DNA test­ing of the hair evi­dence that dis­proved the prosecution’s tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny. They also dis­cov­ered that pros­e­cu­tors had with­held from the defense evi­dence from the mur­der scene that con­tra­dict­ed Newman’s con­fes­sion. A fed­er­al court hear­ing also pro­vid­ed evi­dence that the state’s men­tal health doc­tor had made sig­nif­i­cant errors in admin­is­ter­ing and scor­ing tests he had relied upon in tes­ti­fy­ing that Newman had been com­pe­tent to stand trial.

Notable Clemencies

Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, who declared a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions when he took office in 1967, grant­ed clemen­cy to all fif­teen men on death row in December of 1970.

Milestones in Abolition Efforts

In 2009 a near-unan­i­mous Arkansas General Assembly cre­at­ed the Arkansas Legislative Task Force on Criminal Justice. The Task Force’s stat­ed objec­tive was to study judi­cial dis­tricts to deter­mine if there is dis­crim­i­na­tion in how the most seri­ous felonies, includ­ing cap­i­tal cas­es, are han­dled and who is sub­ject to these pros­e­cu­tions. The Task Force was suc­cess­ful in iden­ti­fy­ing key areas where the state lacked ade­quate infor­ma­tion gathering procedures.

In 1993, nine years before the U.S. Supreme Court banned the exe­cu­tion of peo­ple with men­tal retar­da­tion, the Arkansas crim­i­nal code was amend­ed to cre­ate a mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stance for men­tal retar­da­tion in cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es. This was due in large part due to pub­lic reac­tion to the exe­cu­tion of Ricky Ray Rector in 1992.

Other Interesting Facts

Since the Supreme Court upheld state statutes that rein­stat­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1976, Arkansas is the only state to have con­duct­ed three exe­cu­tions on the same night. It has done so twice:

On August 3, 1994, under Governor Jim Guy Tucker, the state exe­cut­ed Hoyt Franklin Clines, Darryl Richley, and James William Holmes.

On January 8, 1997, under Governor Mike Huckabee, the state exe­cut­ed Paul Ruiz, Earl Van Denton, and Kirt Douglas Wainwright.

Resources

• Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
• Department of Corrections
• Prosecutors
• Public defend­er’s office
• Victims’ ser­vices

Arkansas Execution Totals Since 1976