Hobbs v. Jones
Arkansas Supreme Court
412 S.W.3d 844 (2012)
Arkansas's legislature authorized lethal injection as the method of execution and delegated to the Department of Correction (ADC) the power to select the chemicals and procedures used, listing some acceptable chemicals but leaving the ADC free to use those or entirely different ones; the ADC then adopted its own execution protocol. Death-row inmate Jones (plaintiff) sued the ADC's director, Hobbs (defendant), arguing this delegation of authority violated the state constitution's separation-of-powers clause, and the trial court agreed, prompting Hobbs's appeal.
Whether the legislature may delegate discretionary power to an executive agency if it provides standards to guide the exercise of that power.