LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – Arkansas inmates who had been set for execution in a series of double executions this month said Sunday that a federal appeals court should take up their claim that the compressed timetable would violate “evolving standards of decency.”
U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker granted the inmates stays of execution on Saturday, but she rejected their arguments that too little time between executions violated their constitutional rights. Arkansas originally planned to execute eight inmates between Monday and April 27.
Lawyers for the state appealed immediately with the hope of beginning the executions Monday. In its filing Sunday, the inmates’ legal team said the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should review Baker’s decision to reject part of their arguments.
The lawyers said it was wrong that Baker to write that the inmates “did not establish a significant possibility of success on the merits on their claim that the compressed execution schedule is contrary to the evolving standards of decency.”
Baker had said that while the Supreme Court has made reference to evolving standards, particularly when “punishments are so disproportionate as to be cruel and unusual,” the Arkansas death row inmates were unlikely to prevail.