A Pulaski County Circuit Court judge is set to consider arguments Wednesday on the state’s request to dismiss a lawsuit from Arkansas death row inmates challenging the state’s secrecy law surrounding its execution drugs. He also said the law violates a contracts clause in the Arkansas Constitution because the state, when settling a previous lawsuit, agreed to tell inmates the source of its lethal drugs. The state argues that the secrecy law is constitutional, and that the previous settlement agreement did not amount to a current contract with the inmates.
Advertisement
Eight inmates are set for execution on four dates between October 21 and January 14, meaning two executions will happen on each day, unless an injunction is ordered halting them.
Merritt argued that the case should be dismissed because Arkansas Act 1096, passed in April, bars the state from releasing the names of the execution-drug suppliers without a court order.
Cathy Frye, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Correction, said the department couldn’t comment on ongoing litigation.
“The prisoners knew when they entered into the contract that the sourcing of the (Arkansas Department of Correction’s) drugs was going to be critically important to determining whether their executions would violate the ban on cruel or unusual punishment”.
Among the alternatives listed by the inmates in court filings are execution by firing squad, overdose of a single FDA-approved barbiturate drug, death by anesthetic gas, overdose of an injectable opioid drug, and execution by using an overdose of a transdermal opioid patch.
Last month, The Associated Press identified the three pharmaceutical companies that likely made Arkansas’ execution drugs, all of which said they object to their drugs being used in executions.
“It is not enough for a person to allege that a slightly or marginally safer alternative exists”, Merritt said. He said after that ruling, he would address any other issues. “The amended complaint makes no factual allegations to support a conclusion that alternative execution methods are actually available to the Arkansas Department of Correction”. His execution is scheduled for November 3.
Advertisement
States have often turned to lightly regulated compounding pharmacies, which can mix chemicals, for their execution drugs. She referred questions to the Attorney General’s Office, where spokesman Judd Deere said the lengthy filing was being reviewed and that the office would have no further comment Tuesday.
