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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