Plan to carry out six executions in Arkansas thrown into doubt

Arkansas says one of two executions scheduled for Thursday night won't go ahead.

Death row inmates Stacey Johnson (left) and Ledell Lee are both scheduled to be put to death Thursday, though court rulings have put those executions on hold for now.

Though Lee has maintained his innocence since the murder 24 years ago, his last efforts to stay his executions were met with denials from both Arkansas and federal courts.

Earlier on Thursday, the top Arkansas court overturned a previous ruling that had blocked the use of one of the other three drugs the southeastern state planned to use.

Makers of midazolam and potassium chloride - the two other drugs in Arkansas' execution plan - asked to file briefs with the state Supreme Court on Thursday.

Thirty-one states now administer the death penalty, and lethal injection is the primary means of execution in all of them.

The execution of eight death row inmates would be the most by any USA state in such a short period since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Using redacted drug labels, The Associated Press identified West-Ward Pharmaceuticals Corp.as the likely manufacturer of Arkansas' midazolam supply. A drug supply company says Arkansas obtained the drug under false pretenses. Originally, it was pretty clear to everyone involved that that's the reason for the compressed execution timetable to kill eight men in 10 to 11 days. Two more inmates are set to die Monday, and one next Thursday. She also said the protocol doesn't lay out what executioners intend to do to ensure that the inmates are unconscious.

The company out of San Francisco, McKesson Corporation, a medical supply company, they claim that the state deliberately circumvented them to use the drugs for executions.

Arkansas officials say such an order effectively blocks all the scheduled executions because they have been unable to get more of that drug, which is used as a paralytic as part of the state's three-drug lethal-injection procedure.

"I pray this lawful execution helps bring closure for the Reese family", Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said in a statement. Arkansas Department of Correction Deputy Director Rory Griffin said he didn't keep records of the texts, but McKesson salesman Tim Jenkins did.

"McKesson was duped. into providing the drugs", lawyer John Tull argued.

Circuit Judge Alice Gray has stopped the state's use of vecuronium bromide until she can determine the rightful owner. But the Arkansas Supreme Court vacated that order after the judge, Wendell Griffen, was photographed participating in an anti-death penalty protest on the same day he issued his ruling.

It's a busy two weeks for the Supreme Court's newest member.

But at a recent press conference at the governor's mansion, he actually said that that was his preference, to do these series of three double executions, that he thought it'd be better on the staff to get it all over and done with at once. Johnson was sentenced to death for the murder of Carol Jean Heath, a woman brutally killed in her home.

McKesson said it was disappointed in the court's ruling. "When I set the dates, I knew there could be delays in one or more of the cases, but I expected the courts to allow the juries' sentences to be carried out since each case has been reviewed multiple times by the Arkansas Supreme Court, which affirmed the guilt of each".

Nina Morrison, a lawyer with the Innocence Project, said the group is "grateful and relieved" with the decision to stay the execution.

Bruce Ward and Don Davis, who were to be executed Monday night, won stays from the Arkansas Supreme Court and the state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Davis but not Ward. This came after Johnson claimed additional DNA testing in his case could prove he was innocent. "Lee and identify the real perpetrator of the crime".

The justices often split on death penalty issues, with the conservative justices more willing to allow an execution to take place and the liberal justices more inclined to side with inmates. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his dissent. She appealed to the same court on Thursday afternoon, asking them to rescind the stay or at least give an explanation for why it was issued.