High court blocks Arkansas execution

VARNER, Ark. — The U.S. Supreme Court spared the life of an Arkansas inmate minutes before his death warrant was set to expire Monday, scuttling efforts to resume the death penalty after nearly 12 years in the state with a plan to carry out four double executions before its supply of a lethal injection drug expires.

The court’s decision to maintain the stay for Don Davis capped a chaotic day of legal wrangling in state and federal courts to clear the primary obstacles Arkansas faced to carrying out its first executions since 2005. Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who had set the multiple executions, said the state would to continue to push for the other lethal injections to be carried out. Two inmates are set to be put to death on Thursday.

“While this has been an exhausting day for all involved, tomorrow we will continue to fight back on last minute appeals and efforts to block justice for the victims’ families,” Hutchinson said in a statement.

The legal fight had centered on a series of planned lethal injections that, if carried out, would mark the most inmates put to death by a state in such a short period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The state scheduled the executions to take place before its supply of midazolam, a lethal injection drug, expires at the end of April.

The state was rushing to win approval to execute Davis before his death warrant expired at midnight. Davis and Bruce Ward were set to be executed Monday night and had been granted stays by the state Supreme Court.