These were executions of convenience. The state's supply of one of the drugs used in its lethal injection protocol, midazolam, expires at the end of April, which is why officials set such a rapid schedule of executions. Another man, Stacey Johnson, was supposed to be executed on the same day as Lee, but was granted a stay.
"By law the execution itself is a private event", Graves said. The last double execution carried out in the United States was in 2000 in Texas.
One religious argument against executions is that it denies the criminal the opportunity to repent and even use his experience to try to turn others to religion and away from crime.
But in court documents filed earlier this month, Wendy Kelley, director of the Arkansas Department of Correction, said having multiple executions on one night is better than setting separate dates "because the stress is more associated with an execution night than with a specific number of executions". Arkansas still has one man awaiting execution before the deadline of the drug expiration.
Jones was sent to death row for the 1995 rape and killing of Mary Phillips.
He was also convicted of rape and murder in Florida. Jones was convicted in 1996 of rape and murder.
Ward was convicted in 1990 of murdering Rebecca Doss, whose body was found in the men's restroom at the convenience store where she worked in Little Rock.
Defense attorneys for Jones presented none of his personal history during his trial.
"I forgive my executioners; somebody has to do it", wrote Jones, who had a leg amputated in prison because of diabetes and uses a wheelchair. After making a statement, the execution began at 7:06 p.m.
Williams was pronounced dead at 10:33 pm (0333 GMT).
Lawyers for the state said the inmates scheduled for execution filed an "avalanche" of lawsuits in hopes to stay their executions.
In the emergency filing, Williams' lawyers wrote that officials spent 45 minutes trying to place an IV line in Jones' neck before placing it elsewhere.
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They "did not wait 5 minutes to perform the consciousness check". While human rights advocates have voiced fear that a lethal drug cocktail used by authorities in Arkansas could botch the executions, Blecker says he opposes them because he is against lethal injection.
Williams's execution was briefly stayed by a federal judge until 8:30 p.m., but was lifted an hour later.
The eight executions would have been the most by a state in such a short time frame since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Williams was on death row for the 1994 kidnapping, rape and strangling death of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson, a mother of two.
A media witness said Jones' execution lasted about 14 minutes.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson originally scheduled eight executions to be carried out over 11 days in April - a pace not seen in Arkansas since at least September 1913, according to Department of Correction records.
Williams was also a victim of sexual abuse.
It comes just days after the state ended a almost 12-year hiatus on capital punishment. "I'm sorry we didn't do the things that we needed to do to save you", James told Williams later.
Many Christians, along with people holding other religious beliefs, and still others who do not cite religion at all, object to the death penalty on its failure of compassion. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the appeal, and only one received a clemency recommendation. Under the law, the Court concluded, Holmes shouldn't have been granted an evidentiary hearing on these mitigating factors.
Jack Jones and Marcel Williams were executed last night in Arkansas, marking the first double execution in the USA since 2000.
Two other inmates, Bruce Ward and Don Davis, saw their executions halted by the state Supreme Court as the U.S. Supreme Court considers another case, McWilliams v. Dunn, involving a prisoner's request for a mental-competency evaluation by an expert not selected by the state.
As more pharmaceutical companies refuse to make drugs available for capital punishment, inmates have brought cruel and unusual punishment claims stemming from revised execution methods.
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