Arkansas’ plan to execute eight inmates over 11 days has been put on hold after two judges separately issued orders blocking the executions.
On Friday evening, an Arkansas circuit judge blocked the state from using a particular lethal injection drug following a complaint from a drug distributor. The next morning, a federal judge issued another preliminary order to stay the executions due to a lawsuit filed by the eight inmates.
The Washington Post called the pace and abundance of these executions “unprecedented.”
Arkansas was trying to fit so many executions into a short period of time because it planned to use midazolam, a controversial sedative that has led to multiple botched executions, as part of its three-drug cocktail. Midazolam is set to expire at the end of April.
“It is uncertain as to whether another drug can be obtained,” Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said in a statement. There is currently a shortage of lethal injection drugs on the market, in part because many drug companies do not want their products used for that purpose.
A death-row inmate hasn’t been killed in Arkansas in 12 years, but Hutchinson announced in February that he was moving forward with these executions, giving inmates and their legal teams less than 60 days to prepare. Notably, this decision comes less than a year after the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that the state was permitted to keep its sources for execution drugs private.
Arkansas’ execution plan has been widely criticized by opponents of capital punishment and has been the subject of multiple legal battles.
On Thursday, two pharmaceutical companies asked a federal court to stop the state from using their drugs — one drug company said that the state had not been honest about why it was obtaining the drug, and had subsequently been refunded their money from the company and promised to return the drug, but had never followed through.
In two separate lawsuits filed last month, inmates argued that the state’s plan was “cruel and unusual” and robbed them of an opportunity for effective counsel because of the abbreviated time period.
On Saturday morning, after four days of hearings, U.S. District Judge Kristine G. Baker stayed the executions because she believed it is likely the plaintiffs will prove that the state’s proposed execution plan, particularly as it pertains to the use of midazolam, is is unconstitutional.
John C. Williams, Assistant Federal Public Defender and attorney for some of the death row prisoners, issued a statement of support after the federal judge’s ruling on Saturday morning.
“Today’s ruling is legally sound and reasonable. The unnecessarily compressed execution schedule using the risky drug midazolam denies prisoners their right to be free from the risk of torture,” he said. “We are calling on state officials to accept the federal court’s decision, cancel the frantic execution schedule, and propose a legal and humane method to carry out its executions.”