Latest news with #ArkansasHouseJudiciaryCommittee
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders legalizes controversial nitrogen gas execution method
Arkansas became the fifth state to authorize nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution Tuesday, after Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation codifying the controversial method into law. The adoption of the method came just hours before Louisiana ended a 15-year pause on capital punishment with the nitrogen gas execution of Jessie Hoffman, marking the first time the method has been used outside of Alabama and only the fifth time in the U.S. since last January. Advocates for the bill argued that the method was needed to bring justice to the families of victims. 'As a state we have failed to keep our promises to the friends and family of victims to execute those sentenced to death under our laws,' Attorney General Tim Griffin said in a statement published by the Associated Press. 'That ends now. Act 302 gives the state the tools needed to carry out these sentences and deliver justice.' The Rev. Jeff Hood, an anti-death penalty advocate who witnessed the first nitrogen gas execution in U.S. history and campaigned against his home state adopting it, condemned the governor's choice in a statement to USA TODAY. In testimony to the Arkansas House Judiciary Committee in February Hood called the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith last year "by far the most horrific thing I have ever seen,' according to the Arkansas Advocate. "Governor Sanders has absolutely, positively no idea the moral hell she has just unleashed," Hood said in the statement. The nitrogen hypoxia method of execution is carried out by depriving the condemned of oxygen as the inmate inhales nitrogen through a mask and asphyxiates. Apart from the two states that have used the method, it is also legal in Mississippi and Oklahoma. The legislatures of Ohio and Nebraska have reintroduced similar legislation this year. Opponents of the method have said that it is an exceedingly cruel method of execution. Last week, Chief District Judge Shelly Dick temporarily blocked Hoffman's execution in Louisiana, saying that it could cause him "pain and terror" and that he showed a "substantial likelihood' of proving that nitrogen gas executions violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Dick cited accounts from all four of the Alabama executions that "describe suffering, including conscious terror for several minutes, shaking, gasping, and other evidence of distress." The witnesses observed the inmates' bodies "writhing" under their restraints, "vigorous convulsing and shaking for four minutes," heaving, spitting, and a "conscious struggling for life." Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has defended the method as 'constitutional and effective," and Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has argued in court records that witness accounts from members of the news media are unreliable. The stay was overturned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case in a in a 5-4 decision. States have turned to using nitrogen gas as access to the drugs needed for lethal injections has been limited in recent years. In 2010, Hospira, the company that produced Pentothal − a sedative used in the three-drug lethal injection method—− stopped producing the drug as it could not acquire components of it in the United States. The company attempted to restart production in Italy in 2011 but could not guarantee the country that the drug would not be used in executions. The inaccessibility of Pentothal was compounded by other drug manufacturers refusing to provide drugs for executions. 'The legitimacy of capital punishment has been tied up with the promise that it's safe and humane,' Ausitn Sarat, a political science and law professor at Amherst College, told USA TODAY in 2023. In 2016 pharmaceutical giant Pfizer restricted the distribution of seven of its products to prevent them from being used for lethal injections and in 2017 Baxter International stated that it would not allow its products to be used in executions. The company told The Intercept in 2024 that the statement applied to both its drugs and medical equipment. "Once manufacturers and companies find out that their product is being used to kill people, rather than to heal people, they're concerned, and they don't want their brand identified with that process,' Dale Baich, a former federal defense attorney who has represented death row prisoners, told the Intercept. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January directing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to help states secure the lethal drugs. Arkansas has not seen an execution since 2017, when then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson ordered eight executions to be carried out in four sets of double executions over an 11-day period in April, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The state carried out four of those scheduled executions, two of them botched, according to the center, as supplies of the drugs used in lethal injections was set to expire, CNN reported at the time. The Arkansas Department of Corrections currently lists 25 inmates on its death row. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Arkansas legalizes controversial nitrogen gas execution method
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill to criminalize unlawful squatting moves through Arkansas committee
Rep. Dwight Tosh, R-Jonesboro, presents a bill to criminalize unlawful squatting to the Arkansas House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 6, 2025. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate) The Arkansas House Judiciary Committee on Thursday unanimously passed a bill that would criminalize unlawful squatting, aligning with a priority that Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders laid out at the beginning of the 95th General Assembly. Republican Rep. Dwight Tosh of Jonesboro told the committee he filed House Bill 1049 soon after learning about a constituent of his who he said returned to their house to find the locks had been changed and someone else was living there. Arkansas law addresses trespassing and criminal trespassing, but Tosh said squatting is a civil matter plagued by a long process of court hearings, writs of possession and lengthy removals. HB 1049 would change the law to allow law enforcement to remove suspected squatters from the premises immediately, he said. 'Law enforcement — and this is the key — cannot automatically help a property owner remove squatters,' he said. 'Even though you look at it like a trespasser and a squatter — both of them enter the property without permission — only squatters are entitled to squatters rights.' If the bill becomes law, the offenses would begin at a Class B misdemeanor and escalate to a Class D felony. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The bill describes unlawful squatting as 'entering and residing unlawfully in a premises when the person entering and residing in the premises is not privileged or licensed to do so.' A squatter would violate the law if they could not provide a deed, mortgage statement, lease agreement, electronic agreement or communication allowing entrance to the property or a receipt of rent within 60 days, according to the bill. The bill does not establish a minimum amount of time that someone would knowingly be on another person's property before it is considered unlawful squatting. Committee members seemed amenable to Tosh's bill from the start Thursday, but they still asked questions about language granting law enforcement officers immunity in unlawful squatting cases and similarities to landlord-tenant law. Jeff Rosenzweig, a Little Rock attorney, spoke against the bill, stating that he supported its intent but recommended the bill should include a minimum period of time on the premises and language from existing criminal trespass statutes regarding defenses for guests or invitees. Rosenzweig said he was concerned the bill's current language would include people who sublease a property if the person they're paying rent to doesn't transfer it to the property owner. 'It catches people that I don't think Mr. Tosh was trying to catch, but because it's a criminal statute I think we need to fix that and it can be fixed with just dropping the relevant criminal trespass defenses into the bill,' Rosenzweig said. A handful of people signed up to speak in favor of the bill, including Gary Sipes, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Chiefs of Police, and Scott Bradley with the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association. Sipes said he appreciated how the bill explicitly stated law enforcement officers wouldn't be liable if they incorrectly removed someone or allowed them to stay when presented with conflicting property documentation. Regarding concerns about guests at properties being grouped in as unlawful squatters, Bradley said law enforcement officers already operate with flexibility when writing citations and a decision will be made based on the facts they gather. Before committee members voted on his bill, Tosh reiterated that he believed the proposed legislation prioritized property rights. 'If we didn't have [property rights], then we would actually live in a system of might — who's the mightiest?' Tosh said. 'But thank goodness that we don't. We don't live in a system of might. We live in a system of right.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
