The “Conservative Impulse:” Religious Liberty Misunderstood
By Aaron Weaver
Good Friday is the day that Christians around the world commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. For Rev. Wendell Griffen, an African-American Baptist minister in Arkansas, Good Friday would be the beginning of an assault on religious freedom—his religious freedom and ours too.
Rev. Griffen, pastor of New Millennium Church in Little Rock, joined members of his congregation on the afternoon of April 14, 2017, in front of the Arkansas Governor’s mansion for a Good Friday prayer vigil. The vigil came as the Arkansas Department of Correction planned to execute eight men in 11 days as the state rushed the executions before the expiration of one of the drugs used in its lethal injection protocol.
As the small group held vigil, they offered prayers and sang songs—gospel tunes and favorite hymns such as This Little Light of Mine and Amazing Grace. They did so as Griffen laid on a cot silently and acted as a dead person to, as he wrote, express his “solidarity with Jesus who was condemned to death by crucifixion by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor in Palestine.” He laid gripping a black, leather-bound KJV Bible, which his parents had taught him to read and love nearly 60 years ago.
Earlier in the day, Griffen, who also serves as an elected judge with the Pulaski County Circuit Court, had issued a temporary restraining order barring the Arkansas Department of Correction from proceeding with the execution because of a dispute over how the state obtained the drug vecuronium bromide. The pharmaceutical distributor, McKesson Medical-Surgical, requested the restraining order, arguing that the state had misleadingly obtained the drug.
On April 17, the morning after Resurrection Sunday, the Arkansas Supreme Court issued an order barring Griffen from hearing future death penalty cases as well as cases involving the state’s execution protocol. The Court also referred Griffen to the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission for possible sanctions and cases currently before Griffen were reassigned. The Court’s order implied that Griffen had acted improperly and betrayed his judicial commitment to be independent and impartial. With the per curiam order, the state threw the first punch in a coordinated, pernicious attack on one of its most influential African-American leaders.
Prior to the Arkansas Supreme Court’s action and just hours after Griffen issued the restraining order, a federal judge had issued a separate order staying the executions. United States District Judge Kristine G. Baker made her determination based on grounds related to the inmates’ potential lack of access to their attorney and also questioned the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection procedure.
“Property law is property law, no matter whether one supports or is opposed to capital punishment,” Griffen wrote two days later on his blog. “My job as a judge was to apply property law to the facts presented by the verified complaint and decide whether the medical supplier moving party was likely to succeed on its property law claim for return of the vercuronium bromide. If the medical supplier was not likely to succeed on its property law claim, it was not likely to succeed whether I support or am opposed to capital punishment. If the medical supplier was likely to succeed, but there was no proof that the vercuronium bromide was in imminent risk of being disposed of before a hearing, then there was no reason to issue a [temporary restraining order] whether I support or am opposed to capital punishment.
“And whether the medical supplier was entitled to a [temporary restraining order] or not, I was entitled to practice my religion on Good Friday. I was entitled to practice my religion if there was no [temporary restraining order] motion. I was entitled to practice my religion whether I granted the [temporary restraining order] or not. I was entitled to practice my religion as a follower of Jesus with other followers of Jesus from New Millennium Church. I was entitled to practice my religion as a follower of Jesus with other New Millennium followers of Jesus in front of the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion.”
wendelllgriffen.blogspot.com/2017/04/let-us-reason-together.html (accessed August 21, 2017).