TWO JUDGES set hearings on suits that seek to halt the executions.

U. S. judges to assess execution schedule, inmates’ rights

In federal court Thursday, two judges scheduled hearings during the next two weeks on lawsuits aimed at halting the planned executions of eight Arkansas deathrow inmates in April.

The executions are scheduled to begin April 17 with the lethal- injection deaths of convicted killers Bruce Earl Ward, 60, and Don William Davis, 54.

They are among the eight condemned men the state wants to put to death two at a time over 11 days because one of the drugs used in the execution process expires on May 1.

U. S. District Judge Kristine Baker scheduled a 3- day hearing beginning April 10 on a request to halt the executions on the grounds that the compressed schedule violates the inmates’ Eighth Amendment rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

The preliminary- injunction request is part of a lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of all eight men scheduled for April executions and a ninth death- row inmate whose execution hasn’t been scheduled.

U. S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. scheduled a hearing to begin at 10 a. m. Tuesday on another federal lawsuit filed this week on behalf of six of the eight prisoners scheduled to die in April. It alleges that shortening the time for hearing the six men’s clemency appeals violates their due- process rights.

On each issue, Baker and Marshall also consolidated identical lawsuits that had been filed on behalf of each individual prisoner, leaving each judge to preside over a single case.

Marshall ordered the state to respond to the lawsuit and injunction request “as soon as practicable,” but no later than noon Monday.

“The prisoners’ clemency-related claims are not frivolous, and need prompt adjudication,” he wrote.

Attorneys for the inmates in the Eighth Amendment case asked Baker to expedite a hearing, allowing them to begin taking depositions and requiring the governor and Wendy Kelley, the director of the state Department of Correction, to respond to requests for information by April 7, if not sooner.

The attorneys included a list of 16 questions they want Kelley to answer, and five for

Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

They want Kelley to identify and state the qualifications for every person involved in carrying out each scheduled execution, including the names of the executioners, “the IV team,” anyone who will be involved in mixing or reconstituting the lethal injection chemicals, the person who will establish intravenous access if the IV team fails, and anyone who may be involved in treating the inmate if “the execution procedure fails to have its intended effect.”

The attorneys also want details of the training process for each person involved, and a description of “each step of the execution procedure, starting 48 hours before the first injection or starting with the drug preparation ( whichever occurs earlier),” including information about the storage of the drugs, the

method of choosing which vein or veins to be used, and plans for monitoring the inmate’s vital signs during the administration of the drugs.

They want to know how someone will confirm that the condemned inmate is unconscious, and a detailed description of all safeguards, possible deviations and contingency plans for the procedure.

One interrogatory states, “Specifically explain the contingency plans in place in the event an inmate remains conscious after administration of four syringes of midazolam, regains consciousness at any time during the administration of vecuronium bromide or potassium chloride, and/ or remains alive after administration

of all lethal- injection drugs prepared for the inmate, including but not limited to when and how efforts would be made at resuscitation, and at whose direction.”

Midazolam is an anesthetic administered before the injection of the fatal drugs. It has been linked to at least four botched executions around the country, prompting some states to ban it from the execution protocol. Vecuronium bromide is a paralytic and potassium chloride stops the heart.

If the defendants cite a state law requiring them to maintain confidentiality as a reason for not answering a question, the prisoners’ attorneys want them to say whether the information could be produced under a protective order. They have attached a proposed protective order that would prevent any confidential material from being disclosed to anyone but the attorneys involved in the case and a small circle of assistants.