Arkansas Marks Five Years Since End of 2017 Execution Spree

On April 27, 2017, Kenneth Williams con­vulsed vio­lent­ly as he died on the gur­ney, the fourth pris­on­er put to death in an eleven-day exe­cu­tion spree in which Arkansas intend­ed to exe­cute eight men before its sup­ply of exe­cu­tion drugs expired. It has not exe­cut­ed anyone since.

Arkansas has now gone five years with­out an exe­cu­tion, bring­ing to 39 the num­ber of U.S. states that have either abol­ished the death penal­ty or not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in five or more years. (Click to enlarge map.) Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Three oth­er states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, which col­lec­tive­ly account for 36.4% of the nation’s death-row pop­u­la­tion, cur­rent­ly have mora­to­ria on exe­cu­tions. An addi­tion­al 10 states and the U.S. mil­i­tary have not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in more than a decade, with three oth­ers not hav­ing con­duct­ed an exe­cu­tion since April 2017.

The four exe­cu­tions actu­al­ly con­duct­ed dur­ing Arkansas’s unprece­dent­ed exe­cu­tion sched­ule were mired in con­tro­ver­sy. The spree includ­ed the country’s first dou­ble exe­cu­tion in near­ly 17 years, at least two of the exe­cu­tions were botched, and one of the peo­ple exe­cut­ed had seri­ous claims of inno­cence that were nev­er reviewed by Arkansas courts. Half of the exe­cu­tions were stayed. Three of four Black men were exe­cut­ed. Three of four White men were at least temporarily spared.

The exe­cu­tion spree, sched­uled to con­sist of four sets of dou­ble exe­cu­tions, was the first time Arkansas had con­duct­ed exe­cu­tions since 2005. The expe­dit­ed sched­ule was set in a rush to use the state’s sup­ply of eight dos­es of mida­zo­lam before they expired at the end of April 2017. 

In the peri­od between the issuance of their death war­rants and the sched­uled exe­cu­tion dates, the eight pris­on­ers chal­lenged the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col of a three-drug cock­tail of mida­zo­lam, vecuro­ni­um bro­mide, and potas­si­um chlo­ride. In addi­tion, the com­pa­ny that had dis­trib­uted the vecuro­ni­um bro­mide to Arkansas sued the state, claim­ing that the Arkansas offi­cials had mis­rep­re­sent­ed the intend­ed use of the drugs. The com­pa­ny fur­ther alleged that Arkansas refused to return the drugs even after being offered a refund. 

The pris­on­ers’ lethal injec­tion law­suits and the drug company’s law­suit were ultimately unsuccessful. 

Four of the eight exe­cu­tions were nev­er­the­less not car­ried out. Two of the pris­on­ers, Don Davis and Bruce Ward, had been denied the assis­tance of an inde­pen­dent men­tal health expert at tri­al. The Arkansas Supreme Court stayed their exe­cu­tions on April 17, 2017, pend­ing the out­come of the U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion in McWilliams v. Dunn, which pre­sent­ed a sim­i­lar issue. The state court also grant­ed Ward a stay to per­mit his lawyers to lit­i­gate a claim that Ward was men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. The court also issued a stay to Stacey Johnson on April 19, 2017, direct­ing the tri­al court to con­sid­er his claim for DNA testing. 

A fed­er­al dis­trict court stayed Jason McGehee​’s exe­cu­tion on April 6, 2017, issu­ing a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion direct­ing the Arkansas Parole Board to com­ply with the state’s 30-day pub­lic notice peri­od on the Board’s 6 – 1 rec­om­men­da­tion to grant clemen­cy before trans­mit­ting the rec­om­men­da­tion to the gov­er­nor. Gov. Asa Hutchinson sub­se­quent­ly com­mut­ed McGehee’s sen­tence to life without parole. 

The Executions

Ledell Lee — On April 20, 2017, Arkansas exe­cut­ed Ledell Lee, who had made a DNA test­ing request that was vir­tu­al­ly iden­ti­cal to Stacey Johnson’s.

In a fil­ing to Arkansas courts before his exe­cu­tion, Lee sought new DNA test­ing of hair and blood evi­dence, nei­ther of which pro­vid­ed con­clu­sive results using 1995 tech­niques. Despite a bloody crime scene, no phys­i­cal evi­dence had direct­ly impli­cat­ed Lee in the mur­der. No fin­ger­print evi­dence from the scene matched Lee and no DNA evi­dence was pre­sent­ed to the jury. Fingerprints from the crime scene did not match Lee, but Arkansas has nev­er sub­mit­ted them to a nation­al data­base to deter­mine whether they might match some­one else. Hair and fin­ger­nail scrap­ings from the crime scene were suit­able for DNA test­ing but had not been test­ed. Lee’s request for test­ing was denied.

Justice Josephine Linker Hart dis­sent­ed from the denial of test­ing for Lee in light of the stay grant­ed to Johnson. In her opin­ion, she wrote that she was ​“at a loss to explain this court’s dis­sim­i­lar treat­ment of sim­i­lar­ly situated litigants.”

Lee’s fam­i­ly con­tin­ued to seek DNA test­ing. In January 2020, with sup­port from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Innocence Project, they filed a state Freedom of Information Act law­suit seek­ing DNA and fin­ger­print test­ing that they believed could prove his innocence. 

“My fam­i­ly has been unable to rest for the last two and a half years, know­ing that my broth­er was mur­dered by the state of Arkansas for a crime we believe he did not com­mit,” said Lee’s sis­ter, Patricia Young. ​“What hap­pened to Debra Reese [the vic­tim] is hor­ri­ble, and we keep her fam­i­ly in our prayers. But I was with Ledell the day this mur­der hap­pened, and I do not see how he could have done this.”

Posthumous foren­sic test­ing found DNA from an uniden­ti­fied male on the bloody club used to kill Reese and on a blood-soaked shirt that was wrapped around the weapon, rais­ing addi­tion­al trou­bling ques­tions about Lee’s conviction.

Jack Jones and Marcel Williams — On April 25, 2017, Arkansas per­formed the only dou­ble exe­cu­tion of the spree. Jack Jones and Marcel Williams were put to death about three hours apart, with Williams’ exe­cu­tion delayed amid alle­ga­tions that Jones’ exe­cu­tion had been botched. Williams’ lawyers filed an emer­gency request for a stay in fed­er­al dis­trict court, say­ing that ​“Mr. Jones’s exe­cu­tion appeared to be tor­tur­ous and inhu­mane.” The state denied the alle­ga­tions, call­ing them ​“utter­ly base­less.” According to Williams’ fil­ing, prison staff unsuc­cess­ful­ly tried for 45 min­utes to place a cen­tral line in Jones’ neck, before even­tu­al­ly plac­ing one else­where on his body. Witnesses report­ed that cor­rec­tions offi­cials did not wait the man­dat­ed 5 min­utes to per­form a con­scious­ness check on Jones, and that he was mov­ing his lips and gulp­ing for air after the seda­tive mida­zo­lam had been administered.

Kenneth Williams — The final exe­cu­tion was of Kenneth Williams on April 27, 2022. Media wit­ness­es report­ed observ­ing Williams ​“cough­ing, con­vuls­ing, lurch­ing, jerk­ing, with sound that was audi­ble even with the micro­phone turned off” dur­ing his exe­cu­tion. Associated Press reporter Kelly Kissel said ​“Williams’ body jerked 15 times in quick suc­ces­sion — lurch­ing vio­lent­ly against the leather restraint across his chest.” Kissel, who has wit­nessed ten exe­cu­tions, not­ed that “[t]his is the most I’ve seen an inmate move three- or four-min­utes in.” Williams’ lawyer described the exe­cu­tion as ​“hor­ri­fy­ing.” A spokesper­son for the gov­er­nor dis­missed the wit­ness accounts, call­ing the exe­cu­tion ​“flaw­less” and describ­ing Williams’ move­ment as an ​“invol­un­tary muscular reaction.”