Trial begins over Arkansas' use of sedative in executions

LITTLE ROCK — An attorney for a group of death row inmates challenging Arkansas’ use of a sedative in executions told a federal judge Tuesday that the state’s lethal injection process with the drug causes condemned inmates to feel as though they’re being lit on fire. An attorney for the state said the prisoners haven’t proven why the judge should split from other court rulings upholding the drug’s use.

The trial over Arkansas’ use of midazolam in executions began two years after the state raced to try to put to death eight inmates before its batch of the drug expired. Arkansas executed four of the eight inmates in 2017, but courts halted the other four executions. The trial, which is expected to last two weeks, will revisit two of those executions, which inmates’ attorneys say were problematic.

An attorney for the inmates called midazolam an “inept” sedative that doesn’t render someone fully unconscious before the other lethal injection drugs are administered.

“For all the midazolam is worth, the state might as well strangle the prisoners and burn them to death,” John Williams, an assistant federal public defender, said during opening arguments before U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker.

Read more: https://www.swtimes.com/news/20190423/trial-begins-over-arkansas-use-of-sedative-in-executions
(Fort Smith Times Record)