Vol. 81/No. 15      April 17, 2017

 

Arkansas plans to execute 8 men in 10 days in April

 
The state government in Arkansas says it will execute eight prisoners in just 10 days, beginning April 17. The eight men — four Black and four Caucasian, many of whom have been on death row for at least 20 years — will be the first put to death there since 2005. This move comes amid declining support nationwide for capital punishment.

“This planned mass execution is grotesque and unprecedented,” the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty protested.

In February the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the inmates’ arguments challenging Arkansas’ execution statutes. The state high court then promptly ended a stay on execution, leading Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s office to set the dates.

The governor rushed to set all eight killings in April because the state’s supply of midazolam, which is supposed to render inmates unconscious while two other drugs are injected to paralyze and kill them, expires at the end of the month. Use of midazolam has led to a number of cruelly botched executions with prolonged torture for the recipients. In Oklahoma, Clayton Lockett writhed in pain for the next 43 minutes after receiving the drug.

State governments executed 20 prisoners in 2016, the lowest level in 25 years. And trial juries have imposed fewer death sentences than for decades. However, the number of inmates on state death rows has not declined. As of last July there were 2,905, according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. California, which has not carried out an execution in 11 years, had the largest number on death row last year — 741 inmates.

“I call for an end to the death penalty,” Lisa Potash, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor in Atlanta, said in a public statement April 4. “The rulers use this to intimidate workers, African-Americans and others, seeking to deter us from speaking out and fighting against the brutal attacks on our jobs, our social conditions and our political rights.

“These attacks are the result of the growing economic and political crisis of their capitalist system,” Potash said. “The propertied rulers fear that we will resist, that we will fight to take political power.”

According to polls by Pew Research Center and Gallup, 40 percent of the U.S. population opposes the death penalty, the highest figure in 44 years.  
 
 
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