Ark. seeks to carry out 1 of 2 first executions
VARNER, ARK. >> State and federal courts lifted the two primary obstacles Arkansas faced in its plan to execute eight inmates before the end of April, but the state backed away from legal efforts to carry out one of the first two lethal injections scheduled Monday night.
The decisions from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court were among a flurry of legal actions over the 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 rulings left the state fighting against the clock to execute convicted killer Don Davis before his death warrant was expected to expire at midnight. Davis and Bruce Ward were set to be executed Monday night and had been granted stays by the state Supreme Court, but Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said she wouldn’t appeal Ward’s stay at this time.
The state scheduled the executions to occur before its supply of midazolam expires at the end of the month, and Arkansas has not found a new supplier of the lethal injection drug.
“Allowing (Davis’) stay to stand will effectively prevent Arkansas from seeing justice done,” Rutledge said in a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Separately, a federal appeals court overturned U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker’s decision to halt the executions over the use of midazolam, which has been used in flawed executions in other states, but the Arkansas Supreme Court’s stays remain in place.
A little over an hour later, the state Supreme Court lifted a judge’s ruling that had effectively blocked the executions by prohibiting the state from using its supply of vecuronium bromide, one of the other lethal injection drugs. A medical supply company said it was misled by the state and that the drug was sold for medical purposes, not executions.
The state Supreme Court voted 4-3 to grant stays for Davis and Ward. The inmates wanted stays of execution while the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a separate case concerning access to independent mental health experts by defendants. The U.S. high court is set to hold oral arguments on April 24.
Three Arkansas justices dissented, with Associate Justice Shawn Womack writing that Ward and Davis “had their day in court, the jury spoke, and decades of appeals have occurred. The families are entitled to closure and finality of the law.”
The inmates’ attorneys argued that their clients were denied access to independent mental health experts, saying Ward has a lifelong history of severe mental illness and that Davis has an IQ in the range of intellectual disability.
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s office said she was only appealing Davis’ stay to the U.S. Supreme Court, noting that Ward has two stays from the state high court. Five votes are needed to vacate an execution stay, and Monday marked the first day the U.S. Supreme Court was in session with new Justice Neil Gorsuch on the bench.
“This decision was not unanimous and the dissenting opinions reflect the harm the delays cause the families of the victims and it also expresses my frustration in the continued delayed justice,” Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who set the execution dates, said in a statement.