For the first time in 17 years two prisoners were executed on the same day, on Monday, April 24, when Arkansas continued its race to get in as many of the eight inmates officials had marked for death as possible, before meeting the expiration date of one of the drugs used in the state's lethal ejection protocol.

Arkansas began on the series of executions it gave itself 11 days to oversee, last week when Ledell Lee became the first prisoner the death penalty was carried out on since 2005. Lee would be the first of four men who prosecutors were successful in assigning a death date to, with four of the eight initially listed having been put on hold by court order. On Monday, Jack Jones, 52 and Marcel Williams, 46 became the second and third inmates put to death, leaving the final execution before the state's supply of midazolam expires, to take place on Thursday.

Jones had been awaiting his day for the rape and murder of 34-year-old Mary Phillips and the attempted murder of her 11-year-old daughter in 1995. Williams was given the death sentence for the 1997 kidnapping, rape and murder of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson, and the abduction and rape of two others.

The execution of Williams nearly didn't take place. He had reportedly made it as far as the Cummins Unit death chamber and was already dressed in a gurney when the process was put on hold, over his attorney's claim that Jones, who was executed earlier in the day, was still moving five minutes after the injection of the sedative. Lethal injection opponents have been increasingly successful in stalling executions due to their tendency to fail at being effective in as swift a manner as the cocktail is supposed to. But after holding a brief hearing U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker determined that Jones' execution was not botched, and officials were given the green light to go through with the process. After 17 minutes with the drugs in his system, Williams was pronounced dead at 10:33 CDT.

Source: reuters.com