An anatomy of a killing – Arkansas Online

It's a calm Thursday morning with a peaceful breeze. The state of Arkansas waits to find out whether it will get to scratch its itch and kill a man or two this evening.

It has been a dozen long execution-barren years in Arkansas. And now those damnable courts ...

Arkansas is not handling stress well.

Bart Hester, a state senator from Northwest Arkansas who holds office to make Jason Rapert seem restrained, is surely itching for some killing.

He became highly aggravated last night when the Arkansas Supreme Court voted 4-to-3 to let a death row inmate scheduled for Thursday demise--one of five men the state was eager to kill in a week's time--off the hook, if only for a while.

It was because the court majority determined the man was due an additional DNA test. Or so I assume. As much as I appreciate the ruling, I lament that the court declined to issue a full majority opinion explaining it.

The best explanation I could get for that was that the court wanted the ruling out immediately because of the urgency and believed it didn't have time for arduous composition.

To that I say write faster, in the manner of U.S. Judge Kristine Baker, who held marathon hearings ending last Thursday night and got out a 101-page ruling by Saturday morning, and the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which got out a written ruling by Monday afternoon reversing her.

What Hester did was throw a hissy fit because the state Supreme Court had stopped this killing. He went on Twitter and posted the cell number of Chief Justice Dan Kemp. He sought to incite. He sought to punish a judge for his ruling. His approval ratings probably shot up.

Perhaps the judge got called things some of us have endured for not sharing the official state itch to kill.

Those not broken out in a shingles-grade rash over momentary delays in killing stand accused of not caring about the families of the victims.

We simply don't accept that justice is about revenge. We simply don't see how killing twice condemns killing once.

State Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, one of the more sensible Republican legislators, tells the Associated Press: "I would say there is frustration among the Legislature as to the court's continued refusal to let an execution to go through."

An itch, as someone put it.

Jeremy's uncle, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, has, on this issue, thrown to the wind his two years of hard work to keep the state from shaming itself internationally. He is saying the four-judge majority on the state court ought to explain itself to those victims' loved ones.

The governor is a veteran lawyer. He understands that a judge is accountable to the law, to dispassionate justice, not to the emotions of the people, no matter how strong and understandable.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge is complaining that the state Supreme Court had turned down that very inmate on that very DNA issue in 2004, as if it shouldn't have dared to take a variant view 13 years later.

If a court ruling lasted irrevocably forever, then the Republican Party might be out of business. It would not be able to cling to the possible repeal of Roe v. Wade to stir vital supportive passions against abortion on the evangelical right.

On this calm breezy morning, it appears that the state, by the end of the day, may take an issue or two to the U.S. Supreme Court to seek urgent relief from these onerous local court rulings that won't let it scratch its itch.

The state had already urgently appealed one denied execution, on Monday night, and forced the U.S. Supreme Court to stay up past its bedtime before issuing a perfunctory denial of our plea to get our itch scratched.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is happening Thursday morning: Justice Stephen Breyer is popping his head into Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's office and saying, "Don't forget that we're probably going to have to work tonight. It's Arkansas again."

RBG is sighing and saying she had best take a nap.

To update: It's a warm spring Thursday evening. Both the U.S. Supreme Court and the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have been pestered half to death from Arkansas, mostly by lawyers for Ledell Lee, the first man Arkansas stood a good chance of being permitted to kill.

Shortly after 9 p.m., Rutledge's press aide puts on Twitter: "Another request for a stay by Ledell Lee has been denied by the 8th Circuit. One left."

Arkansas adrenaline is pumping. We're getting closer to kickoff.

After an 0-3 start this killing season, Arkansas seems primed for its first victory.

At 11:56 p.m., we the people kill Ledell Lee. Surely Bart Hester stayed up for it.

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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was inducted into the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame in 2014. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.

Editorial on 04/23/2017

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An anatomy of a killing - Arkansas Online