Arkansas judge blocks lethal drug

LITTLE ROCK, ARK. — An Arkansas judge on Friday blocked the state from using a lethal injection drug in its upcoming executions of six men over 11 days after a company argued that it had not sold the drug to the state to be used for capital punishment.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen issued a temporary restraining order Friday preventing Arkansas from using its supply of vecuronium bromide in the executions, which had been scheduled to start Monday night.

McKesson, a medical supply company, said it sold the drug to the prison system believing it would be used for medical purposes. The company has said it had been reassured the drug would be returned and even issued a refund.

Griffen’s order came the same day the state Supreme Court halted the execution of another inmate who had been scheduled to die Monday night, and as a federal judge heard arguments in a case brought by McKesson and other drug companies.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered outside the Arkansas Capitol on Friday to protest the state’s plan, including actor Johnny Depp and former Arkansas death row inmate Damien Echols, who was freed in 2011.

The Supreme Court justices issued a stay in the execution of Bruce Ward, whose attorneys had requested the action after a county judge said she didn’t have the authority to order a halt. Ward’s attorneys are seeking to present argument that their client, convicted in 1990 of strangling a woman in a convenience store restroom, is incompetent to be executed.

In the federal case, arguments centered on the three drugs the state uses to carry out executions: midazolam, used to sedate the inmate; vecuronium bromide, which stops the inmate’s breathing; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

Arkansas had planned to execute seven inmates before the end of the month, when its supply of midazolam expires.

U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker was also considering the inmates’ contention that such a compressed schedule could lead to errors resulting in undue pain and suffering.

Spokesmen for the state and prison system did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Along with McKesson, Fresenius Kabi USA and WestWard Pharmaceuticals Corp. filed a friend of the court brief objecting to their drugs’ use in the executions. Fresenius Kabi said it appeared it had manufactured the potassium chloride the state plans to use, while West-Ward is the likely manufacturer of the state’s midazolam.

As the courts considered the companies’ arguments, death penalty opponents held a rally headlined by Echols, who spent nearly 18 years on Arkansas’ death row before he and two other men were freed in 2011 in a plea deal in which they maintained their innocence.

“I didn’t want to come back, but when I heard about the conveyor belt of death that the politicians were trying to set in motion, I guess I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t come back and try to do something,” said Echols, who now lives in New York.

If carried out, the executions would mark the most inmates put to death by a state in such a short period in modern history.