This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/17/arkansas-death-penalty-bruce-ward-don-davis-executions
The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Arkansas prepares for flurry of executions despite legal challenges | Arkansas prepares for flurry of executions despite legal challenges |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Arkansas began preparing two death row inmates for execution on Monday night, despite a flurry of legal challenges attempting to hold back what would be the most intense burst of judicial killing in the US in more than half a century. | Arkansas began preparing two death row inmates for execution on Monday night, despite a flurry of legal challenges attempting to hold back what would be the most intense burst of judicial killing in the US in more than half a century. |
| The department of corrections said it was putting final touches on its preparations for the judicial killing of Bruce Ward and Don Davis from 7pm tonight, although the current legal status has both executions on hold. Such legal injunctions can be lifted very quickly at this late stage in the death penalty process, and observers are braced for a prolonged judicial battle that could go late into the night, ending up at the door of the US supreme court. | |
| All eyes are now on the eighth circuit appeals court in St Louis, Missouri, that is weighing whether to allow the executions to proceed after a federal judge placed a temporary injunction on them on Saturday. The Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, had initially intended to execute as many as eight prisoners in 11 days, starting tonight, though that number may be whittled down to six inmates through court intervention. | All eyes are now on the eighth circuit appeals court in St Louis, Missouri, that is weighing whether to allow the executions to proceed after a federal judge placed a temporary injunction on them on Saturday. The Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, had initially intended to execute as many as eight prisoners in 11 days, starting tonight, though that number may be whittled down to six inmates through court intervention. |
| As the pace of legal action quickened on Monday just hours before the first executions were due to take place, a further roadblock was placed in the way of the state by the Arkansas supreme court. It imposed new stays of execution for Ward and Davis after lawyers for the prisoners argued that they had been denied proper expert appraisal of their mental health. | |
| Though the legal barriers are mounting, the state is still pressing forward with moves to prepare the two condemned men for death. They have been transferred to the Cummins Unit in south-west Arkansas that houses the death chamber and will soon be offered a final meal in cells a short walk from the gurney. | Though the legal barriers are mounting, the state is still pressing forward with moves to prepare the two condemned men for death. They have been transferred to the Cummins Unit in south-west Arkansas that houses the death chamber and will soon be offered a final meal in cells a short walk from the gurney. |
| “We’re in place and ready to go for whatever the court rules,” a spokesman for Hutchinson said. | “We’re in place and ready to go for whatever the court rules,” a spokesman for Hutchinson said. |
| The first prisoner scheduled to die was Ward, who was convicted in 1990 of murdering an 18-year-old shop assistant named Rebecca Doss. On Monday, the top state court in Arkansas declined to lift a stay of execution for the prisoner on grounds that he has a long history of mental illness, making it difficult for the state to go ahead with a judicial killing. | The first prisoner scheduled to die was Ward, who was convicted in 1990 of murdering an 18-year-old shop assistant named Rebecca Doss. On Monday, the top state court in Arkansas declined to lift a stay of execution for the prisoner on grounds that he has a long history of mental illness, making it difficult for the state to go ahead with a judicial killing. |
| The second execution, that of Davis, was primed for 8.15pm but was also on hold pending the outcome of the eighth circuit appeal. Davis was convicted of murdering Jane Daniel, 62, in her home in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1990. | The second execution, that of Davis, was primed for 8.15pm but was also on hold pending the outcome of the eighth circuit appeal. Davis was convicted of murdering Jane Daniel, 62, in her home in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1990. |
| The plan for six to eight quick-fire executions in less than two weeks has never before been attempted in the modern era of the US death penalty. Even double executions on the same day are rare – the last time it was attempted, by Oklahoma in 2014, it led to a “bloody mess”. | |
| Arkansas has not had any executions since 2005. Its highly contentious stance has provoked an outpouring of opposition, including an appearance by actor Johnny Depp at a protest rally on Friday, a critical opinion article from the legal thriller writer and Arkansas native John Grisham, and a stream of impassioned tweets from anti-death penalty campaigner Sister Helen Prejean, who was the subject of the movie Dead Man Walking. | |
| Further protests were to be held outside Hutchinson’s official residence in Little Rock. | Further protests were to be held outside Hutchinson’s official residence in Little Rock. |
| The vital eighth circuit appeal follows a 101-page ruling on Saturday by the federal district judge Kristine Baker, in which she questioned the reliability of the sedative midazolam that is used as the first chemical in Arkansas’ triple lethal injection protocol. The drug has been used in recent botched executions in Oklahoma and other states, and its use has been questioned by experts who point out that it is a sedative and not an anesthetic designed to render individuals unconscious. | |
| “If midazolam does not adequately anesthetize plaintiffs, or if their executions are ‘botched’, they will suffer severe pain before they die,” Baker wrote in her opinion. | “If midazolam does not adequately anesthetize plaintiffs, or if their executions are ‘botched’, they will suffer severe pain before they die,” Baker wrote in her opinion. |
| Hutchinson claims the death protocol will be carried out humanely. He has argued the rapid series of executions is necessary to use up a batch of midazolam before it expires on 30 April. Strict distribution controls imposed by more than 30 drug companies in the US and abroad have made it very difficult for death penalty states to lay their hands on medicines for use in the death chamber. | |
| Further fuel to the fire of the Arkansas execution dispute was poured on Monday when the state’s supreme court ordered a circuit judge in Pulaski County to be barred from hearing any further death penalty cases. The judge, Wendell Griffen, had placed an injunction on all the pending executions after McKesson, a major medical supplier, sued the state for misleading it over the acquisition of one of the lethal injection drugs. | |
| Later that day, Griffin joined an anti-death penalty protest outside the governor’s mansion and lay down in a cot to simulate the gurney. A disciplinary panel has been asked to address his actions. |