From Fox16:

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel on Thursday complained that the state’s Parole Board conducted an “ambush” hearing that essentially retried Frank Williams Jr.’s murder case before the panel recommended that the death-row inmate be spared from execution.

McDaniel said his office is now reviewing the way it approaches clemency hearings following the board’s 4-3 recommendation that Gov. Mike Beebe halt Williams’ scheduled Sept. 9 execution and commute his sentence to life in prison without parole. The attorney general complained that the hearing too closely resembled a retrial of Williams.

“These proceedings have never been adversarial,” McDaniel told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday. “It’s not supposed to be a whole new de novo trial on all the merits of the case … There are more execution warrants to be handed down soon and if this is what my staff is to expect from a Parole Board hearing or clemency then we will treat it differently.”

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