Arkansas officials on Monday night executed two inmates in back-to-back lethal injections, carrying out the country's first double execution since 2000.
The executions came days after Arkansas pushed back on legal challenges and executed an inmate last week, the state's first lethal injection in more than a decade. As part of a hurried execution pace that has drawn national attention, Arkansas officials returned to the execution chamber four days later to carry out a pair of death sentences.
More World News Videos
Arkansas carries out first US back-to-back execution since 2000
US state carries out the first double execution in the United States in almost two decades, as part of eight executions due to occur over 11 days.
The second execution was briefly delayed after a federal judge issued a temporary stay to consider claims that the first lethal injection may have been botched, but she lifted the stay shortly before 9.30pm local time. The second inmate was pronounced dead about an hour later, according to the Associated Press, which had a reporter witness it.
These lethal injections marked the first double executions in the United States since 2000, when Texas carried out two death sentences in one night, as well as the first such attempt by a state since a widely publicised botch in Oklahoma in 2014.
Arkansas hoped this month to resume executions by carrying out eight death sentences in 11 days, an unprecedented schedule that has been thwarted by court orders blocking half of those lethal injections. State officials shifted their focus to carrying out the remaining executions on the schedule.
Jack H. Jones Jr. and Marcel W. Williams, both of whom have been on Arkansas death row since being convicted of brutal murders two decades ago, sought to delay their lethal injections at a state prison southeast of Little Rock.
Both appealed to the US Supreme Court, which rejected their requests Monday afternoon and evening. Jones was executed first. Williams was scheduled to follow not long after, but his lethal injection was postponed while his lawyers argued in federal court that Jones' execution was botched. Both men had said their medical issues presented complications to the executions, which involve injections of three drugs.
The Supreme Court first denied Jones' request about an hour before the executions were set to begin at 7pm Monday in Arkansas. Justice Samuel Alito, who is assigned cases from the federal circuit covering Arkansas, referred the request to the full court, which denied it without explanation; Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the only member of the court to register a dissent.
![Jack Jones and Marcel Williams.](/web/20170428112150im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/r/y/c/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvryd9.png/1493131031744.jpg)
Jones was pronounced dead at 7.20pm, 14 minutes after his lethal injection got underway, according to the Associated Press, which had a reporter serve as a media witness. He delivered a last statement expressing remorse.
Williams' appeal was still pending when Jones' execution ended, but not long after, the justices denied the stay request. Again, no explanation was given and Sotomayor was the only justice to note a dissent.
![Former Arkansas death row inmate Damien Echols, centre, back to camera, speaks at rally opposing the state's executions.](/web/20170428112150im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/r/z/6/g/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvryd9.png/1493131031744.jpg)
The Supreme Court's decision to reject Williams' requests meant that the second execution could seemingly proceed as planned, but that was quickly cast into doubt after a federal judge issued a temporary stay later Monday night.
US District Judge Kristine Baker issued the order- staying the execution until 8.30pm local time or further court order, "whichever is later"- after attorneys for Williams filed a motion seeking a stay, arguing that Jones' "execution appeared to be torturous and inhumane."
![Protesters gather outside the state Capitol building in Arkansas on Friday.](/web/20170428112150im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/l/h/o/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvryd9.png/1493131031744.jpg)
Baker issued another order at 9.22pm local time saying that "for the reasons stated" in a court hearing, she denied the motion from Williams' attorneys and lifted the stay.
Attorneys for Williams had noted that he shared medical issues with Jones and said corrections staff struggled to insert a central line into Jones' neck. The attorneys said that corrections officials did not wait five minutes, as required by the execution policy, after the injection began to check and make sure Jones was unconscious after the sedative was administered. They also alleged that Jones was still "moving his lips and gulping for air" after five minutes had elapsed.
![One of the three drugs that the Arkansas Department of Correction purchased to perform several executions. The top photo ...](/web/20170428112150im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/r/y/c/q/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gvryd9.png/1493131031744.jpg)
One media witness says Jones' "lips did move, but only very briefly at the very start of the process." According to the Associated Press, its reporter who witnessed Jones' execution said that the inmate moved his lips briefly after the sedative was first administered and noted that officials put a tongue depressor in his mouth intermittently during the first few minutes. The AP reporter also said Jones' chest stopped moving two minutes after they checked his consciousness.
Under the Arkansas lethal-injection protocol, state officials must check to make sure inmates are unconscious at least five minutes after the sedative is injected. If they remain conscious, officials are then directed to inject a second dose of the sedative.
Williams' attorneys say in their filing that he did not agree to have a central line inserted, and warned that their client's execution could be "even more torturous" than Jones'.
State officials quickly filed a short response pushing back on these assertions about the IV and the execution, calling them "inaccurate" and "utterly baseless."
"The claim that Jones was moving his lips and gulping for air is unsupported by press accounts or the accounts of other witnesses," the Arkansas response stated. "The drugs were administered to Jones at 7.06pm and he was pronounced dead at 7.20pm. There was no constitutional violation in Jones' execution."
The judge's order left the status of the execution in doubt, pushing it further into the night and closer to midnight, when Williams' execution warrant expires.
After Jones was executed, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, R - who scheduled the lethal injections and did not issue a statement following the execution last week - said "the rule of law was upheld" Monday night. He noted that Jones' death sentence was carried out two decades after it was handed down.
"The victim's family has waited patiently for justice during that time," he said in a statement. "The jury sentenced Jack Jones to death, and his sentence was upheld by judges and reviewed thoroughly in courts of appeal at each level."
The lethal injections in Arkansas were planned as part of a schedule that would have been without parallel in modern capital punishment. Hutchinson set eight executions to occur in pairs- back-to-back on four nights spread out over last week and this week- and while most executions occur with little public notice, the timetable in Arkansas drew unusual attention and some criticism.
Attorneys for the inmates filed a volley of appeals seeking to delay the executions, while two dozen former corrections officials wrote a letter to Hutchinson asking him to reconsider the schedule. They warned that the schedule was "needlessly exacerbating the strain and stress placed on" the people carrying it out and saying the timetable could "increase the chance of an error occurring."
Arkansas officials have defended this schedule as necessary because their stock of midazolam, a common sedative that has provoked controversy after some executions and is one of three products used in the state's executions, expires at the end of April. Due to an ongoing shortage of lethal injection drugs, Arkansas authorities say they are not sure if more can be obtained. Leslie Rutledge, R, the state's attorney general, pledged to fight attempts to delay the remaining executions, saying that "families have waited far too long to see justice."
As the execution dates approached, both sides engaged in a multifaceted legal battle, with death-row inmates and Arkansas officials appealing to state and federal courts. Drug companies also weighed in, unsuccessfully asking judges to prevent the state from using their products, which at least one company suggested was obtained through dishonest means.
Death-row inmates in Arkansas also appealed to the US Supreme Court as a group, but those requests have been rebuffed, most recently Monday, when the high court denied a request to rehear a case from Arkansas inmates that the justices had already denied. No explanations were given, though Justice Sotomayor said she would have granted the petitions in that case.
The lethal injections planned Monday come just four days after Arkansas resumed executions, carrying out the death sentence for Ledell Lee after the Supreme Court declined stay requests.
Last week, the Arkansas Supreme Court blocked the first two executions on the schedule, and another execution planned for the same night as Lee's was stayed. Another execution is planned for Thursday night, while a second originally set that night was stayed this month by a federal judge.
While two executions per night had been the original plan in Arkansas, if Jones and Williams are executed as scheduled, Monday would be the only day this month with a back-to-back execution in the state.
Jones, 52, was sentenced to death in 1996 for raping and killing Mary Phillips. According to court records, Jones stalked and killed Phillips, a bookkeeper, and before killing her, he beat her 11-year-old daughter so severely that police thought she was dead when they got to the scene.
Jones' attorneys have argued in court that he has medical conditions that could result in the Arkansas execution method causing him severe pain, according to court records. In a filing, his attorneys said Jones has diabetes, hypertension and several other conditions that cause him to be on medication that could bring intense or painful suffering because of a possible tolerance to the sedative used in the lethal injection.
State officials argue that Jones' challenge involves "guesswork" about the sedative and "is no different than the many lethal-injection challenges" he has filed before. Baker, the federal judge, denied that motion Friday, saying Jones' case did not show "a significant possibility" that the lethal injection process could cause that pain and suffering.
After Jones was executed, Rutledge, the attorney general, released a statement saying she hoped this helped Phillips' family.
"This evening, Lacey Phillips Manor and Darla Phillips Jones have seen justice for the brutal rape and murder of their mother, Mary Phillips," Rutledge said in a statement. After detailing the case, Rutledge added: "The Phillips family has waited far too long to see justice carried out, and I pray they find peace tonight."
Williams, 46, was sentenced to death in 1997 for abducting, robbing, raping and killing Stacy Errickson, who was 22 and was living at the Little Rock Air Force Base while her husband was serving overseas. Arkansas officials, in court filings opposing a stay in his case, said he forced her at gunpoint to take cash from ATMs before raping, beating and strangling her.
Attorneys for Williams have argued in court filings that he had poor counsel during his trial in both his guilt and penalty phases, which they said meant he was sentenced to death despite the jury not hearing any mitigating evidence arguing against the death penalty.
In another filing, they pointed to health issues, saying he weighs 181 kilograms and suffers from several medical maladies that meant the planned lethal injection "was more likely to maim than kill him." His attorneys argued for stays on both counts, but the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit rejected both requests on Friday.
The Arkansas Supreme Court also rejected stay requests from both men.
The 8th Circuit, which had denied an appeal filed by the eight inmates facing execution that challenged the Arkansas method of execution, also denied another challenge Friday that was filed by some of the inmates - including Williams, but not Jones - and focused on the state's clemency procedures.
The planned double execution would be the country's first since August 2000. Texas was in the midst of carrying out 40 death sentences that year, the most for any state in a single year since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Centre. (Executions nationwide have fallen since that time, and last year, 20 death sentences were carried out nationwide.)
Before the double execution in 2000, the first inmate's last words were an admonition against racism targeting black people, according to records kept by Texas corrections officials. He then said, "Let's do it." The second inmate apologised to his victim and his family before saying, "I am ready. I love you all."
Arkansas is not the first state to plan a double execution since then. Perhaps the most highly publicised botched lethal injection in recent memory occurred the last time a state tried carrying out two executions in one night.
In 2014, Oklahoma authorities attempted to execute Clayton Lockett, a convicted murderer, in the first of two lethal injections planned that night. They bungled the process: Lockett writhed and grimaced on the gurney, prompting the execution to be called off, and he died 43 minutes after it began. (The second execution scheduled for that night was delayed; when it was carried out months later, Oklahoma officials used the wrong lethal injection drug. The state has yet to resume executions.)
Officials in Oklahoma later blamed that bungled execution on a misplaced IV. In a state review, officials involved in the process said the back-to-back scheduling added to the stress they felt.
The Washington Post