Arkansas Moves To Execute First Inmate In 12 Years

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Ledell Lee, who is scheduled to be put to death, was denied a stay by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Arkansas will carry out its first execution in 12 years on Thursday night following a flurry of court filings. 

Late Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal from Ledell Lee, whose death warrant expires at midnight CDT.

Lee, 51, is one of eight men the state originally wanted to execute over 11 days before the supply of one of the drugs in its three-part lethal injection protocol expires at month’s end. Four of the inmates have already received individual stays of execution. 

Lee was convicted of the 1993 beating death of 26-year-old Debra Reese in her Jacksonville home. Lee has maintained his innocence and is now represented by the Innocence Project and the American Civil Liberties Union, which petitioned for a stay of execution until evidence in his case can undergo advanced DNA testing. 

“It is inappropriate for the state to rush to execute before a defendant’s innocence claim can be properly examined,” said Nina Morrison, a senior staff attorney with the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York City. “All we are asking for is a hearing on Mr. Lee’s claim that modern DNA testing can prove his innocence. The federal court must now step in to ensure that Arkansas does not put an innocent man to death.”

On Thursday, Lee’s attorneys raced to court with a string of filings that raised various issues about Lee’s trials and his representation over the years. Among them, attorneys noted that Lee’s lawyers in his first trial provided inadequate counsel and that the presiding judge didn’t disclose an affair with the assistant prosecutor, whom the judge later married. Lee’s post-conviction counsel appeared in court drunken and slurred.  

Arkansas set out to execute eight people over the course of 11 days. Why these eight? Why now?”U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer

Lee’s current attorneys further argue that Lee has an intellectual disability, which makes him ineligible for the death penalty under the Constitution.

Other legal petitions surround Arkansas’s use of midazolam, the controversial sedative that has been blamed for botched executions in states including Arizona and Oklahoma, and others question the state’s hasty execution schedule, which has shortened the defendants’ time for measures such as clemency reviews.

The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals voted against granting Lee clemency Thursday.  

Notably, the U.S. Supreme Court’s newest justice, Neil Gorsuch, voted with the 5-4 majority that refused to reverse the 8th Circuit’s decision to allow the execution to take place. 

Justice Stephen Breyer, who was in favor of granting Lee a stay, lamented that Arkansas’s driving factor ― the expiration date of the drugs ― seemed arbitrary.

“Arkansas set out to execute eight people over the course of 11 days. Why these eight? Why now?” Breyer wrote. “The apparent reason has nothing to do with the heinousness of their crimes or with the presence (or absence) of mitigating behavior. It has nothing to do with their mental state. It has nothing to do with the need for speedy punishment.”

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Lee’s execution was first effectively put on hold Wednesday due to a temporary restraining order put in place by a Pulaski County Circuit judge. The judge blocked the state from using its supply of pancuronium bromide, the second drug in the state’s three-drug cocktail. The drug supplier objected to the drug’s use in executions and said the state misleadingly obtained its product and refused to return it despite being refunded by the supplier.  

On Thursday, the Arkansas Supreme Court lifted the judge’s restraining order.

Just before 7 p.m., when Lee’s execution was scheduled to take place, the 8th Circuit issued a temporary stay ― followed later by a temporary stay from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ― to take additional time to consider his case.

Alito’s stay was set to expire at 9:30 p.m. or by a subsequent order, whichever was later. By 9:30 p.m., the 8th Circuit had denied all of Lee’s requests, but Alito’s stay remained in place pending the final order.  

An Arkansas Department of Corrections spokesman told The Associated Press that Lee requested Holy Communion as his last meal.