By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — The state Supreme Court says it won’t reconsider its ruling ordering a lower court to dismiss a lawsuit that challenged the state’s lethal injection procedures.
The state’s highest court today denied a petition by death-row inmate Frank Williams Jr. for a rehearing in his case.
Williams, sentenced to die for the 1992 slaying of Lafayette County farmer Clyde Spence, alleged in a lawsuit that the state failed to comply with the Arkansas Administrative Procedures Act when it adopted rules regarding lethal injection without subjecting the rules to public review and accepting public comments.
The Legislature earlier this year approved Act 1296 of 2009, which wrote the state’s lethal injection procedures into law and declared the procedures exempt from the Administrative Procedures Act.
In October the state Supreme Court ruled that the new law made Williams’ lawsuit moot and ordered a Pulaski County circuit judge to dismiss the lawsuit and lift an injunction on Williams’ execution.
Today the Supreme Court denied Williams’ petition for rehearing without comment. The court also denied a petition by Williams for a new stay of his execution.
Williams had asked that his execution be stayed while he pursues an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel this week asked Gov. Mike Beebe to set execution dates for three death-row inmates, now that Williams’ lawsuit has been dismissed. The lawsuit effectively had put executions on hold in the state.
