On July 21, a divided Arkansas Supreme Court voted 4-3 to deny a request by state death row prisoners to reconsider its recent decision upholding Arkansas’ lethal injection protocol and secrecy law, but in another 4-3 vote, the court issued an order staying the mandate, delaying the decision from taking effect until the U.S. Supreme Court has an opportunity to consider an appeal. The stay order prevents the state from setting new execution dates before the U.S. Supreme Court acts on the prisoners’ appeal. The same three Arkansas justices who dissented from the court’s initial lethal injection decision in June would have granted the rehearing requested by the death row prisoners. However, Arkansas Chief Justice Howard Brill joined the three dissenting justices in staying the ruling pending action by the U.S. Supreme Court on the lethal injection decision. Eight inmates have completed their standard appeals, and Governor Asa Hutchinson had indicated that he intended to set execution dates for those inmates as soon as possible. Executions were previously in doubt because the state’s supply of the drug vecuronium bromide, used as a paralytic agent in the state’s three-drug execution protocol, had expired. But Arkansas recently announced that it was able to obtain a new supply of the drug from an unnamed source. The state’s supply of potassium chloride, the final drug used in executions to stop the prisoner’s heart, expires on January 1, 2017. Because of the timeline for petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court, it is unlikely that Arkansas will be able to resume executions before its supply of that drug expires.

(C. Geidner, “Arkansas Supreme Court Grants Stay, Keeping Executions On Hold,” Buzzfeed News, July 21, 2016; C. Lauer, “ARKANSAS COURT DENIES REQUEST FOR NEW EXECUTION LAW HEARING,” Associated Press, July 21, 2016; A. DeMillo, “Arkansas governor aims to set execution dates before January,” Associated Press, July 13, 2016.) See Lethal Injection.

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