Governor controls executions
John Brummett

We probably should not look to Gov. Mike Beebe, who'll likely stay conservative on law enforcement issues, for opposition to the death penalty.

Don't be looking for any Rockefeller-styled midnight commutations from him.

But his office is precisely where two members of the Arkansas Coalition for the Abolition of the Death Penalty went Monday, accompanied by the governor's former legislative colleague and transition adviser, Joyce Elliott.

It's the place you have to go. No one is going to get executed in Arkansas without the governor setting the date.

The coalition's president, David Rickard, and Larry Benfield, an Episcopal bishop, took Elliott with them - as a buffer and for political credibility - as they made a courtesy call on Beebe's chief of staff, Morril Harriman.

They acknowledged to Harriman that they understood there might not be any urgency.

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to consider whether a Kentucky inmate ought to have the right to petition for a stay on the argument that the way the state administers lethal injection might be so painful as to be unconstitutionally cruel and unusual. So Arkansas, and most other states, are holding their horses.

Like every- thing else important before the Supreme Court, this vote - next summer, most likely - will almost assuredly fall 5-to-4 one way or the other, and Justice Anthony Kennedy will decide.

He's the swing vote, i.e., the decider.

We could save a lot of time and lawyers' fees just by calling him up and asking him.

While the issue is pending, Attorney General Dustin Mc- Daniel has said he won't certify any executions for the setting of dates by the governor.

Beebe has said he has no objection to that.

It would look a tad bloodthirsty, kind of Texan, to try to inject a guy lethally while the Supreme Court was calling for briefs on whether lethal injection was infected with constitutional complications. Nonetheless, Arkansas is merely holding matters in a kind of forced abeyance because of the federal court debate.

It is not contemplating, by its own volition, the state's death penalty. And that is precisely what Harriman's visitors said Beebe ought to have the state do.

A few states have imposed formal moratoriums on executions pending the appointment of a study commission.

Such commissions have been charged with compiling an exhaustive report about every conceivable aspect of the death penalty - the certainty and fairness of verdicts, the consistency of the application, the costs to the state, the concerns of victims' families, and so forth.

Rickard said Harriman listened to the idea that Arkansas should do the same, and was noncommittal.

Elliott said Harriman "seemed to appreciate" that the death penalty opponents came by for such a courtesy, and assured his visitors that there would be further discussions.

Elliott is a former school teacher and state representative from Little Rock who rose to chairmanship of the Education Committee before getting termlimited. She and Beebe have a frank, friendly and respectful relationship.

She serves as kind of a liberal conscience for him, albeit one he'll argue with and go against - such as on gay foster parenthood.

Beebe and Harriman put her on the transition team, and now she is running for the state Senate in east-central Little Rock.

She told me she really hadn't stopped to think about how her anti-death penalty activities would be perceived in the district in which she seeks elected office.

"There are a few things I just can't compromise on, regardless of the politics, and the death penalty is certainly one of them," she said.

I should mention that her district is as liberal as any in the state. So, while she has political courage, this is not so much an occasion for it.

But if Mike Beebe were to issue a moratorium and call for a study, now that would be courage.

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John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His telephone number is 374-0699.