Eight condemned prisoners given stay of execution due to poison going past its expiry date

Death row (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)

Eight condemned prisoners scheduled to be executed in April, have received a stay of execution due to a lack of new poison, and the old having gone past its expiry date.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Arkansas said the eight death row Inmates should get extra time, with two of them receiving an opportunity to prepare applications for a pardon.

Ahead of the decision, authorities in Arkansas pointed out that only a little extra time can actually mean quite a lot of extra time. Two of the prisoners had had their execution dates set for Wednesday, April 30th.

The State lawyers said that the condemned prisoners are fully aware of this, and that Arkansas doesn’t presently have access to the poison, midazolam. Thus, on Monday morning, the review body stated that it would be impossible to execute the eight condemned on the 30th of April.

The executions were originally scheduled for the 17th of April, two by two in four death-doubles. Over the past 40 years, only the southern State of Texas implemented a similar type of execution schedule, when in 1997 they executed two groups of eight death row inmates in a single month.

Arkansas hasn’t executed anyone since 2005, due to two complications surrounding the law of poisonous injection, and trouble in getting all the chemicals necessary.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today

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