A federal appeals court has denied two Arkansas death row inmates’ requests for intervention, paving the way for their executions Monday night.
Marcel Williams and Jack Jones were served their last meals. Jones had fried chicken, potato logs, beef jerky bites, Butterfinger bars and a chocolate milkshake. Williams also had fried chicken and potato logs, along with banana pudding, nachos with chili cheese and jalapenos and Mountain Dew.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday denied their motions for stays. In response, both men filed emergency petitions Monday afternoon with the US Supreme Court seeking a stay. Hours later, the court responded with a denial for Jones but not Williams.
Williams had argued that he will likely experience severe pain during the execution because of his medical conditions, and that the lethal injection amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The decision came hours after the court denied Williams a stay based on ineffective counsel claims in his 1997 trial for the 1994 rape and murder of Stacy Errickson.
The appeals court also declined inmate Jones’ request for a stay based on a claim that the state’s new lethal injection protocol will inflict cruel and unusual punishment.
Williams was found guilty of forcing Errickson into her car at gunpoint and making her withdraw money at several ATMs in transactions caught on camera. Her body was found two weeks later.
Jones was convicted in 1996 in the rape and murder of Mary Phillips. He abducted her and her 11-year-old daughter, then beat the girl and left her for dead in 1995. She regained consciousness as police photographers took pictures of the crime scene.
How they got to this point
Williams and Jones were among eight inmates scheduled by Gov. Asa Hutchinson to be executed between April 17 and April 27, before the state’s supply of sedatives used in lethal injection were set to expire.
The governor said the eight executions were necessary to “fulfill the requirement of the law” and to bring closure to victims’ families.
The eight inmates joined in a last-minute lawsuit challenging the clemency process, arguing the state’s compressed schedule did not allow time for the state board to consider their cases. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals denied them relief, and only one received a clemency recommendation.
The inmates also sued over the sedative used in the three-drug protocol. Their attorneys argued that the drug midazolam does not effectively prevent a painful death. The lawsuit went to the US Supreme Court, which ultimately denied a motion for a stay.
The first execution was carried out Thursday. Three were scheduled for this week, including the two on Monday.
Four are on hold pending appeal.
Last double execution was 1999
On April 20, Arkansas executed Ledell Lee, who was convicted in 1995 of murdering a woman in her home two years earlier. Lee maintained up until his death that he was innocent. He became the first person put to death in Arkansas since 2005.
Lee’s execution followed a flurry of court rulings Thursday, capped by the US Supreme Court’s denial of multiple requests for stays of execution.
Amnesty International said it was a “shameful day,” and that the state was treating people “as though they have a sell-by date.”
Arkansas’ last double execution was on September 8, 1999, according to the Department of Corrections. Thirty-one states use the death penalty, with lethal injection being the primary method. US executions fell to a 25-year low last year.