Wendell Griffen appears to be like again on his judicial profession and outspoken activism

JUDGE WENDELL GRIFFEN: In Democracy Now interview.

Pastor, choose and social justice advocate Wendell Griffen retires this yr after 24 years as a Court docket of Appeals and circuit choose, a tenure marked by passionate public feedback on justice points that many, notably within the legislature, didn’t like.

His retirement is the event for an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, spanning his life from a segregated boyhood in Delight (the place he picked cotton to become profitable to assist his household pay a ballot tax to vote) to present controversies, together with his advocacy for launch of Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who faces a dying sentence within the 1982 slaying of a Philadelphia police officer.

It contains his account of mendacity on a cot, sure with rope, exterior the Governor’s Mansion throughout a Good Friday dying penalty demonstration.

Good Friday, as you understand, is sacred, is likely one of the Excessive Holy Days for individuals within the faith of Jesus. It was the date on which Jesus was crucified after having been sentenced by Pontius Pilate, who was the governor of Palestine on the time, the Roman governor. Palestine was an occupied territory. And so, our congregation thought it will be becoming that as an alternative of getting an a sequestered Good Friday service in our church, we might take our religion to the streets, and to the road proper exterior of the Governor’s Mansion, the place the governor of Arkansas was about to preside over the dying of eight, eight of God’s youngsters, just because the death-dealing medication, the deadly injection medication, had been about to run out. And they also determined to hurry up the clock so we couldn’t have the medication expire with out killing individuals. And so, we determined that’s the best way for us to watch Good Friday. Jesus, the chief of our religion, was executed by a governor. We might do the identical factor and protest. And so, that was the motivation for it.

We sang. Individuals of the congregation sang hymns, and I lay on that cot for 90 minutes, ready for that 90-minute interval to finish, to symbolically present our solidarity with Jesus and likewise present the solidarity with the faith of Jesus with all those that dwell with their backs in opposition to the wall and who’re oppressed by our prison punishment system.

It produced a firestorm and led the Arkansas Supreme Court docket to take away Griffen from dying penalty instances. He’d simply presided over a drug firm’s problem of using its drug for executions, a non-approved use. It was a property rights case, however it had the impact of halting use of the drug for executions.

Precisely. I used to be barred as a result of I had that prayer vigil, and I used to be presiding over a case that had been filed by the distributor of the deadly injection medication, who alleged and introduced sworn affidavits that these medication had been procured by the state of Arkansas by fraud. And they also introduced what basically was a replevin lawsuit in search of to get the return of their property. And so they filed a movement for a brief restraining order. The entire grounds for non permanent restraining order had been of their favor. I entered a brief restraining order on Good Friday. And by Monday, the Supreme Court docket eliminated me from the case, as a result of they needed to ensure that I wasn’t on that case. Mockingly, one other choose was appointed to succeed me, and he or she discovered that the non permanent restraining order was acceptable. So, two judges discovered it was acceptable. The Supreme Court docket didn’t take away her. They only vacated the non permanent restraining order.

Griffen plans to maintain talking out. In fact.

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