Arkansas seeks to resume executions as drug expiration nears
Source: Associated Press
Arkansas seeks to resume executions as drug expiration nears
Kelly P. Kissel, Associated Press
Updated 4:08 pm, Thursday, May 19, 2016
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A lawyer for Arkansas' prison system asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to allow eight executions to proceed, telling justices that questions about one of the state's execution drugs have been adequately addressed by judges elsewhere in the U.S.
Arkansas has until June 30 to execute the inmates with drugs it currently has on-hand. Fifteen doses of the paralytic vecuronium bromide expire at the end of next month, and the state's supplier has said it will not provide anymore.
Justices questioned whether they should rule on the issue if experts couldn't agree on whether another drug used in the state's three-drug execution protocol, the surgical sedative midazolam, renders inmates fully unconscious before harsher drugs kill them. The eight death-row inmates have sued the state, saying its protocol could amount to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.
"Have we ever reversed when we've had dueling experts?" Justice Courtney Hudson Goodson asked as she and a colleague wondered aloud whether a lower court should hold another hearing. "We have conflicting expert testimony."
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Arkansas-seeks-to-resume-executions-as-drug-7715790.php
