WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court is leaving in place a decision dismissing a
lawsuit filed by a judge in Arkansas who was barred from overseeing
execution-related cases after he participated in an anti-death penalty
demonstration.
The justices said Tuesday they wouldn’t get involved in the lawsuit filed by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen.
Griffen participated in an anti-death penalty demonstration outside the
governor’s mansion in 2017 during which he was photographed laying on a cot
wearing an anti-death penalty button. Earlier that day, Griffen blocked Arkansas
from using a lethal injection drug over the claims that the state misled a
medical supply company.
Arkansas’ highest court removed Griffen from that case and prohibited him from
hearing death penalty cases. Griffen sued, but a federal appeals court dismissed
the case.
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