LITTLE ROCK — A trial has begun over Arkansas' use of a sedative in executions that critics say doesn't render inmates fully unconscious, two years after the state raced to put eight inmates to death before its batch of the drug expired.
An attorney for death row inmates challenging Arkansas' use of midazolam in executions told a federal judge Tuesday that the state's lethal injection process causes condemned inmates to feel as though they're being lit on fire.
A reporter who witnessed the executions in 2017 of Arkansas death-row inmates Kenneth Williams and Marcel Williams spent the morning on the witness stand.
Kelly Kissel, then a news editor for The Associated Press and now a metro editor at The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La., testified about his observations of the men’s deaths.
In Marcel Williams’ case, Kissel said the man’s labored breathing, which began even before any drugs were administered, seemed to go on longer than any of the previous eight executions he witnessed.
The previous executions Kissel witnessed did not involve midazolam.
Kissel noted that Marcel Williams was a large man, and had labored breathing as soon as the curtains opened. The reporter said he saw an apparent consciousness check being performed on Marcel Williams, and saw the person who did the check mouth “I don’t know” to someone right after one of them. Kissel said he assumed – but didn’t know for sure – that meant the person couldn’t tell if the inmate was still conscious.
In the Kenneth Williams execution three nights later, also at the Varner Unit, Kissel testified that 3 to 4 minutes into the process, “his body lurched forward 15 times in quick succession," and then five more times at a slower rate. He said he saw Williams’ head hit “violently up against the leather restraint.”
On cross-examination, Kissel was asked if he was aware that a side effect of midazolam is respiratory distress. He said he had read inserts about the drug and believed that was listed as a side effect.
An attorney for the state argued that the inmates have fallen far short of proving the state's execution process is unconstitutional.
Arkansas executed four of the eight inmates in 2017. Courts halted the other four executions.
The trial is expected to last two weeks.
Read Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
Information for this article was contributed by Linda Satter of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.