Arkansas Executions: Everything To Know About First Lethal Injections Since 2005

Arkansas’ first executions in years began last week, with eight men scheduled to be put to death over 10 days. The state’s supply of the lethal injection drug midazolam was set to run out by the end of the month and Gov. Asa Hutchinson issued an order in February, allowing for the eight men to be executed in such a short span.

The state proceeded to hold its first execution since 2005 Thursday and the country’s first double execution Monday since 2000. Below is a look at everything we know about the executions.

Arkansas was set to execute eight men in the span of 10 days. Executions were scheduled for Bruce Earl Ward, Don William Davis, Ledell Lee, Jack Harold Jones, Stacey Eugene Johnson, Marcel W. Williams, Kenneth D. Williams and James F. McGehee. All were convicted of murders committed between 1989 and 1999. Of the eight men, four received stays or delays of their executions and were scheduled to have their cases heard at the end of the month.

The state’s supply of its lethal injection drug was set to expire at the end of the month. The pace of the executions had much to do with the supply of midazolam, one of the key lethal injection drugs in Arkansas, expiring at the end of April. Hutchinson issued an order in February to execute the eight men before the drugs ran out.

Ledell Lee was the first to be executed. In the first execution in Arkansas since 2005, Lee, 51, was put to death Thursday. Lee was convicted of the 1993 murder of 27-year-old Debra Reese. Lee requested Holy Communion for his last meal and did not release a final statement before receiving a lethal injection.

Jack Harold Jones and Marcel Wayne Williams were put to death in a double execution. In the first time any state has put two people to death on the same day since 2000, both were executed Monday. Williams, 46, was convicted of the 1997 kidnapping, rape and murder of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson as well as the abduction and rape of two other women. He did not issue a statement before his execution. Jones, 52, was convicted of the rape and murder of 34-year-old Mary Phillips in 1995 in front of her 11-year-old daughter. “I hope over time you could learn who I really am and that I am not a monster,” he said in a final statement before being put to death.

Both Jones and Williams were denied last-minute appeals. After requests to stay both executions failed, the Arkansas Department of Corrections administered lethal injections to both men Monday night.

Williams’ attorney’s submitted an emergency filing about his death. His attorneys claimed that it took prison officials 45 minutes to place an intravenous line into his neck and that Jones was “gulping for air.” Arkansas Deputy Solicitor General Nicholas J. Bronni said in a court motion that the claims were “unsupported by press accounts or the accounts of other witnesses” and that there was “no constitutional violation in Jones’ execution.”