By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Supreme Court issued a stay of execution for death-row inmate Don W. Davis this afternoon, just hours before he was to be put to death in the 1990 death of a Rogers woman.
In a two-page ruling, Justice Robert Brown said the stay was needed to allow a Pulaski County circuit judge to hear a lawsuit that argues the state’s Method of Execution Act violates the separation-of-powers clause of the state constitution.
“At this writing, it is unknown whether the separation-of-powers argument made by the death-row inmates will prevail in state court, so as to render (the law) unconstitutional,” Brown wrote.
The last execution in Arkansas was in November 2005, when Eric Nance was put to death by lethal injection.
Davis’ attorney, Deborah Sallings, said she was pleased by the ruling but had not discussed it with Davis, who was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in the 1990 execution-style slaying of Jane Daniel of Rogers.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said he was disappointed with the high court’s ruling.
“My heart goes out to the family of Mrs. Daniel,” McDaniel said at a news conference. “I do not agree with the decision of the Arkansas Supreme Court and we will have to work our way through it.”
The stay was the second for Davis in the hours before he was to be executed.
In 2007, he received a stay just hours before he was to die by injection, as family and friends of Daniels waited outside the gates of the Cummins Unit where Arkansas’ death chamber is located.
“As frustrated as we are, it is absolutely nothing compared to what that family is experiencing,” McDaniel said today.
The lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court, filed by condemned killer Jack Harold Jones Jr., alleges the Legislature gave the state Department of Correction too much authority in establishing execution protocols in the 2009 Arkansas Method of Execution Act.
“I think it is ludicrous to allege that the Department of Correction may at the last minute change their execution protocols,” McDaniel said. “It is a hypothetical question, but on that basis the Supreme Court has halted the execution six hours before it was to take place.”
Davis is an intervenor in Jones’ lawsuit.
On Friday, a panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at St. Louis dissolved stays of execution for both Davis and Stacey Eugene Johnson, who is scheduled to be executed May 4.
Johnson was sentenced to death for the 1993 slaying of Carol Heath, who was killed in her De Queen apartment.
The state has filed a motion asking a judge to dismiss Jones’ lawsuit.
Jones was scheduled to be executed March 16, but the 8th Circuit has previously issued a stay.
