Despite a short window to use its execution drugs, Arkansas will not seek an expedited order from the state Supreme Court enforcing its Thursday ruling that paved the way for executions to resume.
EXECUTIONS: In-depth look at 4 men put to death in April + 3 others whose executions were stayed
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Attorney General Leslie Rutledge announced Friday that she would wait until the Supreme Court issues a mandate. The court order, which would allow the executions of eight inmates who had already been scheduled to die by lethal injection, could come as late as July 12, according to Supreme Court officials.
But one of the three drugs required to be used by the state's execution law, vecuronium bromide, has a June 2016 expiration date, according to court records.
No state spokesmen -- from Rutledge's office to the governor's office -- would comment on whether the state has acquired new drugs or would be able to, come July.
"Until a date is set [by the governor], we're in a holding pattern," Arkansas Department of Correction spokesman Solomon Graves said. "As of now, if dates were set, we'd have a supply on hand. ... I'm not going to get into where we are a week from now or two weeks from now. I can tell you right now we have a supply on hand."
On Friday, a spokesman for Rutledge, Judd Deere, said Rutledge came to the decision after "careful consideration." He would not elaborate on what drove those deliberations.
"She is prepared, once the court issues the mandate, to ask the governor to set dates of execution," Deere said.
Once Rutledge informs Gov. Asa Hutchinson that the mandate has been issued, Hutchinson can go about scheduling the dates of execution, which he did in early September, before the executions were stayed.
Hutchinson spokesman J.R. Davis said the coordinating of executions is very much "a process" involving multiple players and that right now, they can only wait on the court, and then Rutledge.
Not asking for an expedited mandate is "the attorney general's call, and we will move forward accordingly and appropriately with the information we have," Davis said.
Mandates from the Supreme Court are typically delayed about 18 days to allow attorneys to petition the court for a rehearing.
Jeff Rosenzweig, an attorney for nine death row inmates, including the eight previously scheduled for execution dates that were stayed, said his office is working on that appeal petition and it will be a "timely rehearing petition."
Rosenzweig filed suit against state prison officials shortly after Act 1096 became law last year. The state has not executed anyone in more than a decade due to legal challenges and shortages of execution drugs.
Act 1096 proscribed a three-drug protocol and, in order to secure willing vendors otherwise leery of public backlash for being in the business of state-sanctioned killings, included language that kept the source of any execution drug acquired by the state secret from the public.
Although a Pulaski County circuit judge ruled that privacy language was unconstitutional, a divided Supreme Court on Thursday reversed his December ruling and found that the state law did not run afoul of the inmates' rights to due process, the right to be free of cruel or unusual punishment or various public information parts of the state Constitution.
Rosenzweig said state prison officials have not informed him that they have found a new supplier for the drugs that expire this month.
Asked if Hutchinson would still schedule executions without a usable drug if the mandate didn't come until July, Davis declined to speculate on a hypothetical.
"We'll take it one step at a time," he said.
Metro on 06/25/2016