Arkansas executes 4th inmate in 8 days

VARNER, Ark. — Arkansas executed it fourth inmate in eight days Thursday night, wrapping up an accelerated schedule of lethal injections that was set to beat the expiration date of one of the drugs.

Kenneth Williams, 38, was pronounced dead at 11:05 p.m., 13 minutes after the execution began at the Cummins Unit prison at Varner. A prison spokesman said Williams shook for approximately 10 seconds, about three minutes into the lethal injection.

“I extend my sincerest of apologies to the families I have senselessly wronged and deprived of their loved ones,” Williams said in a final statement he read from the death chamber. … I was more than wrong. The crimes I perpetrated against you all was senseless, extremely hurtful and inexcusable.”

Williams was sentenced to death for killing a former deputy warden after he escaped from prison in 1999. At the time of his escape in a 500-gallon barrel of hog slop, Williams was less than three weeks into a life term for the death of a college cheerleader.

Arkansas had scheduled eight executions over an 11-day period before one of its lethal injection drugs expires Sunday. That would have been the most in such a compressed period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, but courts issued stays for four of the inmates.

The four lethal injections that were carried out included Monday’s first double execution in the United States since 2000.

State officials have declared the string of executions a success, using terms like “closure” for the victims’ families. The inmates have died within 20 minutes of their executions beginning, a contrast from midazolam-related executions in other states that took anywhere from 43 minutes to two hours. The inmates’ lawyers have said there are still flaws and that there is no certainty that the inmates aren’t suffering while they die.

Arkansas scheduled the executions for the final two weeks of April because its supply of midazolam, normally a surgical sedative, expires Sunday. The Arkansas Department of Correction has said it has no new source for the drug — though it has made similar remarks previously yet still found a new stash.

Williams’ lawyers said he had sickle cell trait, lupus and brain damage, and argued the combined maladies could subject him to an exceptionally painful execution in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Arkansas’ “one size fits all” execution protocol could leave him in pain after a paralytic agent renders him unable to move, they said.

“After the state injects Mr. Williams with vecuronium bromide … most or all of the manifestations of his extreme pain and suffering will not be discernible to witnesses,” they wrote to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which rejected his request to stop the execution.

The U.S. Supreme Court also denied a request for a stay that argued his claims of intellectual disability had not been fully explored.