NEW YORK – An Arkansas judge has temporarily blocked six executions from taking place after the company that manufactured the drugs to be used in the executions filed a complaint that the drug was not meant to be used for lethal injection.
A state Supreme Court judge had previously halted the execution of a seventh man earlier in the day, and an eighth execution was put on hold earlier. Arkansas had originally scheduled eight executions in the span of 10 days because their lethal injection supply was set to expire at the end of the month.
“The people of the United States have spoken out against this horrific conveyer belt of death and we are relieved that the judge has temporarily stopped these executions. We continue to call on Governor Hutchinson to use his executive authority to permanently stop this assembly line of death,” said James Clark, senior campaigner with Amnesty International USA. “The fight will not be over until this cruel and inhumane punishment is abolished once and for all.”
