Arkansas Performs Double Execution Amid Allegations of Botched Lethal Injection

Arkansas car­ried out the nation’s first dou­ble exe­cu­tion in near­ly 17 years on April 24, 2017. The state exe­cut­ed Jack Jones (pic­tured, l.) and Marcel Williams (pic­tured, r.) about three hours apart, with Williams’ exe­cu­tion delayed fol­low­ing alle­ga­tions that Jones’ exe­cu­tion may have been botched. 

Williams’ attor­neys 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. 

U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker issued a tem­po­rary stay in response to Williams’ request, held a short hear­ing on the issue, then lift­ed the stay at approx­i­mate­ly 9:30 pm Central time. 

The dou­ble exe­cu­tion was part of an unprece­dent­ed sched­ule of exe­cu­tions set by Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson in order to use the state’s sup­ply of mida­zo­lam, the first of three exe­cu­tion drugs, before it expired. The gov­er­nor ini­tial­ly set eight exe­cu­tions for an 11-day peri­od, with two exe­cu­tions sched­uled for each of four nights. 

The first two exe­cu­tions, set for April 17, were both stayed indef­i­nite­ly, one exe­cu­tion was per­formed and one stayed on April 21. One of the pris­on­ers sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on April 27, Jason McGehee, has already received a stay of exe­cu­tion after the Arkansas Parole Board vot­ed 6 – 1 to rec­om­mend that he be grant­ed clemen­cy. Litigation is still pend­ing in the case of Kenneth Williams, the oth­er pris­on­er sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on April 27. [UPDATE: Kenneth Williams was exe­cut­ed on April 27.]