Kentucky is not Texas, and while the Attorney General is duty-bound to do so, when Attorney General Jack Conway asked for execution dates to be set for three Death Row inmates last week, it was still an uncomfortable reminder that Kentucky still has the death penalty, despite all the overpowering financial, legal, constitutional and moral arguments against it.
On the same day, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear was asked to halt all executions until a 10-member team of state lawyers and former judges recently appointed by the American Bar Association can assess Kentucky’s flawed death-penalty system. That letter was sent to Beshear and Conway by two of the state’s top public defenders and a dozen Kentucky lawyers.
On Wednesday, at least temporarily, the Kentucky Supreme Court had the final word, by issuing a separate ruling relating to the death penalty that required the state to promulgate or publish a regulation setting forth the specifics of the states lethal injection procedure. While that is a temporary procedural roadblock, it at least temporarily halts the death penalty process in Kentucky.
