The state of Arkansas executed two people within hours. Its stocks of midazolam, used for death sentences, will expire at the end of the month.
Cynicism has no limit. Prisoners in Arkansas, United States, learned this the hard way. The American state has just executed two detainees a few hours apart. Reason: The doses of midazolam, one of the ingredients used for lethal injection, will soon be expired. So, the fight against waste requires, the authorities have decided to carry out killings with a vengeance.
Last week, Arkansas executed a first prisoner – this had not happened since 2005. Then two more on Monday evening: Marcel Williams, 46, convicted of rape and murder, declared dead at 5:33 am French time, three hours after Jack Jones, 52, indicted on the same grounds. In the United States, two prisoners had not been executed in a row for 17 years. In all, the state plans to kill eight death row inmates in eleven days, during the month of April – proceeds expire on the 30th.
Failed executions
But the plan, as economical as it is, could fail. Indeed, four of these executions were suspended by order of the court. Because the work has, it seems, lacked cleanliness. Lawyers for Jack Jones, executed on Monday, have indeed seized the courts to denounce the conditions of this execution.
Prison officers first, they said, failed to place a central line in Jones’ neck. They then fell back on the installation of two peripheral venous passages on the arms of the detainee.
Six to seven minutes after the injection of the first product, the famous midazolam, supposed to plunge the prisoner into deep unconsciousness, Jack Jones “moved his lips and struggled to breathe,” they wrote in their appeal.
Stress for officers
Lethal injections consist of three products administered one after the other. The one that expires on April 30, midazolam, is a sedative accused of not plunging the convict sufficiently into unconsciousness, putting him at risk of severe pain.
The State for its part denounced claims “completely unfounded” by ensuring that the first execution had taken place in the rules. But this assembly line execution project was shocking. It has been denounced by the European Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or even by the master of the noir novel John Grisham, a native of Arkansas.
Opponents of the death penalty further asserted that a double execution could only create dangerous stress for the prison officers in charge of the act, who were not prepared.
Poison shortage
These executions come against a backdrop of an upcoming shortage of drugs to kill those on death row. Indeed, last May, the Pzifer laboratory, manufacturer of midazolam, announced that it would ban the use of its drugs, supposed to save lives, to remove that of other people, however criminal they may be.
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