By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Gov. Mike Beebe today ordered a halt to execution preparations for Jack Harold Jones Jr. after a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis decided not to take any action on a request to dissolve a stay of execution issued last week.

Jones’ execution was scheduled for tonight.

Beebe’s office said in a statement that the governor ordered the state Department of Correction to stop any preparations for the execution pending further rulings and orders by the courts.

In its order, the appeals court said one of the three judges, Raymond W. Gruender of St. Louis, said he would have voted to dissolve the stay.

“It could be several months, it could be a year before this case is ultimately resolved,” said Chief Deputy Attorney General Justin Allen of the court’s decision not to take action.

Jones has filed a lawsuit alleging the state’s Methods of Execution Act, approved last year, is unconstitutional because it hinders his ability to pursue a legal claim by denying him access to the actual lethal injection protocol that will be used to execute him.

U.S. District Court Judge Leon Holmes last week ruled that “the public interest would be served” if the court considered Jones’ claims.

“Clearly Judge Holmes intends to leave the stay in place until he has disposed of the case in some fashion,” Allen said, adding the case now heads back to court.

“(That) takes us back to the lawsuit that (Jones) has filed that gave rise to this stay. Now we litigate it,” Allen said.

Jones was sentenced to die for raping and killing Bald Knob bookkeeper Mary Phillips and assaulting her daughter in 1995.