Arkansas death row inmate faces execution after injunction lifted

[Eugene]

8. Update: Arkansas execution delayed by Supreme Court; state abandons second planned lethal injection

Source: Washington Post

Arkansas execution delayed by Supreme Court; state abandons second planned lethal injection

By Mark Berman April 20 at 11:39 PM

Arkansas appeared Thursday night to be prepared to carry out the state’s first execution in more than a decade, even as the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily postponed the lethal injection and other appeals were still pending that could add further delays.

This uncertainty amid a whirlwind of legal filings and orders came after Arkansas entered this week hoping to begin an unprecedented wave of executions, plans that were imperiled by a series of court orders halting at least some of the eight lethal injections originally set for April.

As part of its aggressive scheduling, Arkansas planned to carry out back-to-back executions on Thursday night at a state prison southeast of Little Rock. But that was abandoned when a state court blocked one of those lethal injections, and officials instead focused solely on plans to execute Ledell Lee, 51, by lethal injection.

Lee was sentenced to death in 1995 for the killing of Debra Reese, who was beaten to death in her home two years earlier. According to court petitions and his attorneys, Lee has long denied involvement in Reese’s death, and he was seeking DNA testing to try and prove his innocence.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/04/20/arkansas-plan-to-resume-executions-is-blocked-by-new-court-orders/?utm_term=.91665029e8a0