Eight death-row pris­on­ers whom Arkansas has sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in the next four months have asked a judge to issue a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion that would put their exe­cu­tions on hold. They argue that the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures are uncon­sti­tu­tion­al for mul­ti­ple rea­sons and that Arkansas’ secre­cy law vio­lates a pre­vi­ous set­tle­ment agree­ment between death row inmates and the state. Arkansas, which has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since November 2005, has sched­uled eight exe­cu­tions for four dates (two exe­cu­tions on each date) between October of this year and January 2016, even though legal chal­lenges to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures were pend­ing in state court and were sched­uled to pro­ceed to tri­al. The state recent­ly passed a bill that allows the Department of Correction to keep the source of exe­cu­tion drugs secret. Jeff Rosenzweig, an attor­ney for the death row inmates, said the secre­cy law vio­lates an agree­ment in which the state agreed to tell inmates the source of lethal injec­tion drugs in exchange for the inmates drop­ping part of a pri­or law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. The inmates argue that, with­out know­ing the man­u­fac­tur­er of the drugs, they can­not deter­mine whether the exe­cu­tion may con­sti­tute cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. They are seek­ing a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion block­ing exe­cu­tions from pro­ceed­ing until the case is decid­ed. A state tri­al court has moved the hear­ing date for the inmates’ law­suit from October 23 to October 7. In June 2012, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the state’s pri­or exe­cu­tion law as vio­lat­ing the state con­sti­tu­tion. [UPDATE: On October 9, the Arkansas tri­al court judge who is pre­sid­ing over the inmates’ chal­lenge to the state’s exe­cu­tion process grant­ed a tem­po­rary restrain­ing order stay­ing all of the sched­uled exe­cu­tions. The court ruled that the pris­on­ers would suf­fer ​“imme­di­ate and irrepara­ble injury” if they were exe­cut­ed and that pro­ceed­ing with the exe­cu­tions, with­out afford­ing the par­ties an ade­quate oppor­tu­ni­ty for dis­cov­ery and to resolve the legal issues in the case ​“will rob Plaintiffs of an oppor­tu­ni­ty to lit­i­gate their rights under the Arkansas Constitution.”]

(C. Lauer, ​“Arkansas Death Row Inmates Ask for Preliminary Injunction,” Associated Press, October 1, 2015; T. Nashrulla, ​“Arkansas Judge Halts Eight Executions After Legal Challenge From Inmates,” BuzzFeed, October 9, 2015.) See Lethal Injection.

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