Home - ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project

Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project

Working to Obtain a Nationwide Moratorium on Executions

Arkansas

| Arkansas Assessment Team | Resources on the Administration of the Death Penalty in Arkansas |

Arkansas Assessment Team

Professor Michael W. Mullane, Chair of the Arkansas Assessment Team, is a Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law. He serves as the Director of the Legal Clinic overseeing six separate clinical programs. Professor Mullane previously taught at the University of Maine School of Law and was in private practice for fifteen years with Jennings, Strouss, and Salmon in Phoenix, Arizona. He also served in the United States Navy as a pilot. Professor Mullane received his B.A. and J.D. from the University of Notre Dame.

Nate Coulter is a partner at Wilson, Engstrom, Corum, & Coulter in Little Rock, AR and practices in the areas of Personal Injury, Medical Malpractice, Real Estate and Zoning Litigation, Commercial Litigation, and Employment Litigation. Prior to joining the firm, he was a partner at Wright, Lindsey & Jennings in Little Rock. He served as Assistant Legal Counsel to Governor Bill Clinton from 1988-89. He clerked for Chief United States District Judge G. Thomas Eisele in the Eastern District of Arkansas from 1985-87. He is a member of the Pulaski County Bar Association, the Arkansas Bar Association, where he serves as the Chair of the Board of Governors, and the American Bar Association. He is also a member of the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association, the American Trial Lawyers Association, the William R. Overton Inn of Court, and the Arkansas Bar Foundation Board of Directors. He is a co-founder of Our House (a shelter for the homeless) in Little Rock. He is currently serving a one-year term on the Board of the Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts Foundation. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College and a graduate of Harvard Law School.

Louis B. “Bucky” Jones currently serves as Director of the Fayetteville Regional Campus of Webster University. Before holding this office, Mr. Jones was in private practice in Forrest City for 15 years. He then worked as the Senior Staff Attorney for the East Arkansas Legal Services for three years, and spent nine years at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville. Mr. Jones was President of the Benton County Bar Association from 1994-1995. He is a member of the Arkansas Bar Association, where he served as President from 1999-2000. In 1996, the Arkansas Bar Association appointed Louis Jones to the Board of Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA) foundation, located in Little Rock, Arkansas. Mr. Jones earned his B.A. from Hendrix College and his J.D. from the University of Arkansas.

Robert Lawrence is a professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law, focusing mainly on commercial law. Professor Lawrence has acted as an assistant professor of law at the University of North Dakota, and as a visiting assistant professor of law at the University of New Mexico. He earned his B.A. from Ohio State University, a master’s degree in education from the University of Alberta, and his J.D. at the University of New Mexico, where he graduated magna cum laude.

Judge John B. Plegge currently practices law at Watts, Donovan & Tilley, P.A. His practice areas include Mediation, Arbitration, Insurance Defense; Automobile Law; Personal Injury; Products Liability; Commercial; Business Torts; Asbestos; Aviation; Arson; Environmental Law. Judge Plegge is a former Circuit Judge for the Sixth Judicial District, Pulaski County (1989-2003), Representative of the Arkansas General Assembly (1971-1972), and Assistant Little Rock City Attorney (1962-1969). Judge Plegge is a member of the National Judicial College, the American Academy of Judicial Education, the American Bar Association, the Muddy Fork Bar Association, the American Board of Trial Advocates, and the William R. Overton Inn of Court. He received his B.S. from Arkansas Tech University and his J.D. from the University of Arkansas.

Tom Wynne is a partner at Wynne Law Firm in Fordyce, Arkansas. Mr. Wynne served as Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for the 10th and 13th Judicial Districts from 1976 to 1988, and as Prosecuting Attorney for the 13th Judicial District from 1989 to 1998. In 1993, he served as President of the Arkansas Prosecuting Attorneys Association. He also served as City Attorney for Fordyce, and as Mayor from 1983 to 1986. He earned his B.A. at Harvard University, and obtained his J.D. from the University of Arkansas.

**Additional Team Members will be announced shortly.

Resources on the Administration of the Death Penalty in Arkansas

Megan K. Rosichan, A Meaningless Ritual? The Due Process Mandate for the Provision of Competent Counsel in Arkansas Capital Post-Conviction Proceedings, 38 U.S.F. L. Rev. 749 (2004).

Jarrod S. Parrish, The Perpetuation of Illusory Rights in the Arkansas Juvenile Code, 57 Ark. L. Rev. 275 (2004).

Alan A. Stone, Condemned Prisoner Treated and Executed, Psychiatric Times, March 2004, at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=66&did=946.

Cabell, Brian, Arkansas Executes Mentally Ill Inmate, CNN.com, Jan. 7, 2004, at www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/01/07/arkansas.executions.

Drew, Kevin, Executed Mentally Ill Inmate Heard Voices Until End, CNN.com, Jan. 6, 2004 at www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/01/06/singleton.death.row/index.html.

USA: (Arkansas) Death penalty / Legal concern, Charles Laverne Singleton, Amnesty International, Nov. 35, 2003 at web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR511402003?open&of=ENG-USA.

Jonathan David Nelson, Henderson v. Arkansas: One Strike and You're Out-Does the Arkansas Constitution Provide Its Citizens With More Protection that the United States Constitution in the Context of Cruel and/or Unusual Punishment?, 56 Ark. L. Rev. 229 (2003).

T. Scott Randall, Pleading Guilty in Arkansas: A Journey Down the Rabbit's Hole, 55 Ark. L. Rev 401 (2002).

John P. Marks, Bader v. State: The Arkansas Supreme Court Restricts the Role Religion May Play in Jury Selection, 55 Ark. L. Rev. 613 (2002).

Jeffrey A. Weber, Supreme Court of Arkansas Rule 4-3(J): No-Merit Briefs in Arkansas and the Need to Amend the Rule, 24 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 313 (2002).

Michael S. Robbins, The Fetal Protection Act: Redefining "Person" for the Purpose of Arkansas' Criminal Homicide Statutes, 54 Ark. L. Rev. 75 (2001).

James Liebman, Jeffrey Fagan, & Valerie West, A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases State Report Card Arkansas, 1974-1995 (2000).

Morton Gitelman, The Plain Error Rule in Arkansas-Plainly Time for a Change, 53 Ark. L. Rev. 205 (2000).

J. Thomas Sullivan, The Culpability, or Mens Rea, "Defense" in Arkansas, 53 Ark. L. Rev. 805 (2000).

Joel F. Hoover, The Arkansas Supreme Court Redefines the Steps Necessary for Trial Courts to Determine Whether Peremptory Challenges are Racially Discriminatory in Light of the United States Supreme Court's Decision in Purkett v. Elem, 21 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 631 (1999).

Analysis of Arkansas Public Defender Commission Attorney Salaries, The Spangenberg Group, Aug. 1999.

J. Thomas Sullivan, Prosecutorial Misconduct in Closing Arguments in Arkansas Criminal Trials, 20 U. Ark. Little Rock L.J. 213 (1998).

Paul Kelly, Juvenile Offenders in Arkansas, 33 Ark. Law. 22 (1998).

Dale D. Smith, Trial Procedure-An Analysis of Arkansas's Exceptional Treatment of the Contemporaneous Objection Rule in Criminal Bench Trials. Strickland v. State, 322 Ark. 312, 909 S.W.2D 318, 19 U. Ark. Little Rock L.J. 291 (1997).

Gerard F. Glynn, Arkansas' Missed Opportunity for Rehabilitation: Sending Children to Adult Courts, 20 U. Ark. Little Rock L.J. 77 (1997).

J. Thomas Sullivan, Psychiatric Defenses in Arkansas Criminal Trials, 48 Ark. L. Rev. 439 (1995).

Doug Ward, Post Conviction Remedies in Arkansas: What's a Lawyer To Do?, 28-SUM Ark. Law. 23 (1994).

Carol A. Fitzsimmons, Whitmore v. Arkansas: Execution of an Individual, Without a Prior Mandatory Appellate Review, Denied Scrutiny, 18 New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ. Confinement 203 (1992).

Terri Schull, Constitutional Law-Indigent Defense-Arkansas Statutory Fee and Expense Limitations Unconstitutional. Arnold v. Kemp, 306 Ark. 294, 813 S.W.2D 770, 14 U. Ark. Little Rock L.J. 595 (1992).

Jeff Rosenzweig, The Crisis in Indigent Defense: An Arkansas Commentary, 44 Ark. L. R. 409-423 (1991).

Constitutional Law-Cruel and Unusual Punishment-Arkansas State Penitentiary System Violates the Eighth Amendment.-Holt v. Sarver, 309 F. Supp. 362 (E.D. Ark. 1970), 84 Harv. L. Rev. 456 (1970).