Tell Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson: Stop the assembly line of executions
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson
The state of Arkansas is slated to execute seven people in 10 days.
Arkansas is racing to use up the supply of a controversial execution drug, Midazolam, because it expires at the end of this month. They previously planned to execute eight men but a judge blocked one of the executions just last week.
Arkansas’s planned assembly line of executions is irresponsible, unethical and risky.
Midazolam is supposed to make inmates go unconscious before they're put to death. But, as reported by Mother Jones, it's been used in a number of botched killings—with men writhing in pain for extended periods before finally dying. Last year, Arizona officials stopped using the drug after it took Joseph Wood nearly two hours to die during an execution in 2014.
No state has conducted as many as eight executions in a single month since 1977. Arkansas hasn’t executed anyone in 12 years. Double executions haven’t occurred in the U.S. in close to 20 years. Oklahoma’s recent attempt at a double execution induced such stress on the corrections team that the first execution went horribly awry, and they cancelled the second one.
The death penalty is cruel, inhuman and degrading. It is applied in an unfair and unjust manner, largely dependent on race, income, ability and victimology (one is more likely to be executed if the victim is white). Four of the men being raced to death are mentally ill or intellectually impaired, and some were abused as kids . What's more, some of the condemned men had lawyers who did not properly investigate their cases or present mitigating evidence to the court.
Speeding through these executions just to beat a deadline is reckless. No state should give itself the right to kill human beings. This is even more true when those slated to death may have been denied due process of law and of equal protection under the law.
Our friends at Equal Justice USA are already working to stop this irresponsible rush to execution. Your signature will be added to their petition delivery this Friday, April 14.
Click here to add your name: Demand Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson stop this assembly line of executions.
Arkansas is racing to use up the supply of a controversial execution drug, Midazolam, because it expires at the end of this month. They previously planned to execute eight men but a judge blocked one of the executions just last week.
Arkansas’s planned assembly line of executions is irresponsible, unethical and risky.
Midazolam is supposed to make inmates go unconscious before they're put to death. But, as reported by Mother Jones, it's been used in a number of botched killings—with men writhing in pain for extended periods before finally dying. Last year, Arizona officials stopped using the drug after it took Joseph Wood nearly two hours to die during an execution in 2014.
No state has conducted as many as eight executions in a single month since 1977. Arkansas hasn’t executed anyone in 12 years. Double executions haven’t occurred in the U.S. in close to 20 years. Oklahoma’s recent attempt at a double execution induced such stress on the corrections team that the first execution went horribly awry, and they cancelled the second one.
The death penalty is cruel, inhuman and degrading. It is applied in an unfair and unjust manner, largely dependent on race, income, ability and victimology (one is more likely to be executed if the victim is white). Four of the men being raced to death are mentally ill or intellectually impaired, and some were abused as kids . What's more, some of the condemned men had lawyers who did not properly investigate their cases or present mitigating evidence to the court.
Speeding through these executions just to beat a deadline is reckless. No state should give itself the right to kill human beings. This is even more true when those slated to death may have been denied due process of law and of equal protection under the law.
Our friends at Equal Justice USA are already working to stop this irresponsible rush to execution. Your signature will be added to their petition delivery this Friday, April 14.
Click here to add your name: Demand Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson stop this assembly line of executions.
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To:
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson
From:
[Your Name]
Do not proceed with your assembly line of executions. Since the modern death penalty was established in 1976, no state has attempted four double executions in ten days. And the execution drug, midazolam, is so controversial for causing botched executions that Florida and Arizona have stopped using it. Halt this cruel and unusual killing spree – it violates basic decency and is not justice.