(AP) – Lawyers for the state are arguing that Arkansas’ prison director has long had the power to determine a death row inmate’s sanity and that now isn’t the time to change the way it moves prisoners closer to their executions.
Jack Greene has argued that Arkansas’ correction director, Wendy Kelley, shouldn’t determine whether he’s eligible to be executed because her boss, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, sets execution dates.
The inmate’s lawyers also say he is delusional, but that Kelley is using outdated assessments to judge his mental health.
In papers filed at the state Supreme Court on Friday, assistant attorney general Kathryn Henry wrote that states are entitled to set the guidelines for review, as long as there is a “basic fairness.”
Greene acknowledges killing Sidney Burnett in western Arkansas in 1991.
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