ABA: 'Troubled' by Arkansas' multiple execution plan
Source: Associated Press
ABA: 'Troubled' by Arkansas' multiple execution plan
Andrew Demillo, Associated Press
Updated 5:24 pm, Tuesday, April 11, 2017
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The American Bar Association urged Arkansas on Tuesday to back away from its unprecedented plan to put seven men to death over 10 days starting next week, with the group saying it was worried the timeline could undermine due process for the inmates facing lethal injection.
ABA President Linda Klein asked Gov. Asa Hutchinson to give more time between the executions, which are set to begin on April 17. Hutchinson scheduled the executions to take place before the state's supply of midazolam, a controversial sedative used in lethal injections, expires.
"We are troubled that this current execution schedule appears not to allow for these necessary safeguards and prioritizes expediency above due process," Klein wrote in a letter to the governor. "Because neither Arkansas decision-makers nor defense counsel currently have adequate time to ensure that these executions are carried out with due process of law, we simply ask that you modify the current execution schedule to allow for adequate time between executions."
Arkansas hasn't executed an inmate since 2005 because of legal challenges and drug shortages. If carried out, the timeline would be the most inmates a state has executed in that short of a time since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/ABA-Troubled-by-Arkansas-multiple-execution-11066184.php