Arkansas inmates set for execution insist they are innocent

Arkansas officials are vowing to press ahead with the Thursday executions despite the setback to plans to resume capital punishment after a 12-year hiatus.

Governor Asa Hutchinson originally set out an aggressive schedule of eight lethal injections in 11 days that would have marked the most inmates put to death by a state in such a short period since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

The state set the compressed schedule because its supply of one of the lethal injection drugs expires at the end of April.

One of the inmates set to die on Thursday, Stacey Johnson, says advanced DNA techniques could show that he did not kill Carol Heath, a 25-year-old mother of two, in 1993 at her DeQueen apartment.

The other inmate scheduled for Thursday, Ledell Lee, argued unsuccessfully on Tuesday in a Little Rock courtroom that he be given a chance to test blood and hair evidence that could prove he did not beat 26-year-old Debra Reese to death during a 1993 robbery in Jacksonville.

An appeal is possible.

Lawyers are known to make multiple arguments to save their clients' lives in the final hours before execution.

The state and its lawyers say the inmates are seeking any legal approach they can find in their efforts to avoid death.

"It is understandable that the inmates are taking every step possible to avoid the sentence of the jury; however, it is the court's responsibility to administer justice and bring conclusion to litigation," Gov Hutchinson said in an emailed statement.

"It is that process that we are seeing played out day by day, and we expect it to continue.

"My job as governor is to work with the attorney general to make sure that justice is accomplished and the law of Arkansas is carried out, and that's what we're working every day to accomplish."

Don Davis and Bruce Ward were supposed to be the first two executed.

They won stays from the Arkansas Supreme Court on Monday after lawyers argued their mental health issues were similar enough to those raised in an Alabama case going before the US Supreme Court next week.

The execution of a third inmate, Jason McGehee, had been set for April 27, but a federal judge put it on hold earlier this month, saying McGehee was entitled to a 30-day comment period after the Arkansas Parole Board told the governor that the inmate's clemency request had merit.

That leaves five men set for execution in an eight-day period starting on Thursday.

It is the quickest timetable in Arkansas since 1926, though state officials say waiting more than two decades to put some of the killers to death could hardly be characterised as swift.

"The families have waited far too long to see justice, and I will continue to make that a priority," Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said late on Monday.

Lawyers for the inmates set to be executed on Thursday are relying primarily on claims the men are innocent.

Johnson's lawyer, Jeff Rosenzweig, wants a court to order new DNA testing on hair found in the victim's apartment and on clothing that prosecutors found at a rest stop and linked to Johnson.

"That's something we had sought from the state and federal courts and had been denied, and we're making another run at it and showing that there are new techniques that came into effect literally this year that can provide results that can bear on the case," Mr Rosenzweig said.

Mr Rosenzweig also represents two other inmates scheduled to die this month - Jack Jones and Kenneth Williams.

He said neither man would raise innocence claims.

They instead will rely again on whether the sedative midazolam could present a risk of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the US Constitution.

In addition to Lee's innocence claim, his lawyers want to know whether their client has an intellectual disability that was not properly investigated during his trials.

"Mr. Lee has never had the opportunity to have his case truly investigated, despite serious questions about guilt, and his intellectual disability," Lee's attorney, Cassandra Stubbs, said.

Separate from the inmates' legal challenges, a handful of drug companies are saying they do not want their products used in the executions.

Two pharmaceutical companies filed a court brief last week asking a federal judge to block Arkansas from using their drugs, but the judge did not rule on that issue.

The medical supplier McKesson Corp refiled its lawsuit on Tuesday before a judge in Pulaski County.

McKesson seeks an order that would force prison officials to return the company's supply of vecuronium bromide, one of three drugs used in the state's lethal injection protocol.

AP