To Arkansas judge who ruled on execution drugs, death penalty protest is a religious act

Wendell Griffen, an Arkansas circuit judge who also serves as a Baptist pastor, defended his participation in a death penalty protest after issuing a court order barring the state from using an execution drug.

His ruling had nothing to do with his views on capital punishment, Griffen wrote in a blog post April 19. He was preparing to join other members of New Millennium Church in Little Rock for a Good Friday prayer vigil outside the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion when he received a motion seeking a temporary restraining order to block the first of a series of executions scheduled to begin the day after Easter.

The party bringing the complaint claimed the Arkansas Department of Corrections had purchased vecuronium bromide—one of three drugs used in the state’s execution protocol—illegally under false pretenses and wanted the product returned. Griffen focused on facts and the law, he wrote.