Arkansas Gov signs proclamations that could lead to eight executions in less than two weeks in next month

There has so far been only four executions nationwide in 2017.  The just concluded month of February had no executions, and this Death Penalty Information Center list of upcoming executions suggests that there are only two serious execution dates (both in Texas) for March.  But this local article from Arkansas, headlined "Arkansas Governor schedules execution dates for 8 inmates," the Natural State could be poised for a record-setting April. Here are the details:

Arkansas’ governor on Monday set execution dates over a 10-day period in an attempt to resume the death penalty after a nearly 12-year hiatus, even though the state lacks one of three drugs needed to put the men to death.  Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed proclamations scheduling double-executions on four days in April for the eight inmates.  The quick schedule appears aimed at putting the inmates to death before another one of the state’s lethal injection drugs expire, and if carried out would mark the first time in nearly two decades a state has executed that many inmates in a month.

The move comes just days after the state’s attorney general told the governor the inmates had exhausted their appeals and there were no more legal obstacles to their executions. “This action is necessary to fulfill the requirement of the law, but it is also important to bring closure to the victims’ families who have lived with the court appeals and uncertainty for a very long time,” Hutchinson said in a statement.

The U.S. Supreme Court last week rejected the inmates’ request to review a state court ruling that upheld Arkansas’ lethal injection law. The state Supreme Court on Friday lifted the stay on its ruling, clearing the way for Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge to request the dates be set. Arkansas hasn’t executed an inmate since 2005 due to legal challenges and difficulties obtaining execution drugs.

The state’s supply of potassium chloride — one of three drugs used in lethal injections — expired in January. A prison system spokesman said Monday that the drug hasn’t been replaced, but Hutchinson’s office said officials were confident they could obtain more. And the state’s supply of midazolam lists an April 2017 expiration date, which pharmacy experts say is commonly accepted to mean the end of the month.  The state’s supply of vecuronium bromide expires on March 1, 2018.

The inmates late Friday filed an amended complaint in state court aimed at blocking the executions, again arguing the lethal injection law and the three-drug protocol are unconstitutional.  Attorneys for the inmates argued Monday in a letter to Hutchinson that the state Supreme Court’s stay is in place until that complaint is resolved. They said the current protocol “is almost certain to cause the prisoners excruciating suffering.”...

Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, only Texas has put eight people to death in a month — doing it twice in 1997.  Arkansas has had multiple executions in the past, including triple executions in 1994 and 1997.  At the time, the state Correction Department said multiple executions reduced stress on prison staff.

For a host of reasons, I will be surprised if Arkansas is able to move forward with eight executions over the last two weeks of April. But these developments certainly signal that the state is serious about getting its machinery of death up and running again ASAP.