This combination of undated photos provided by the Arkansas Department of Correction shows the death row inmates in question. Top row (from left): Jack Harold Jones Jr., Marcel Williams, Stacey E. Johnson, Ledell Lee. Bottom row (from left): Jason F. McGehee, Kenneth Williams, Don Davis and Bruce Earl Ward. McGehee's execution was blocked by federal judge last week. Arkansas Department of Correction via AP hide caption

Updated at 9:02 a.m. ET, Saturday

A federal judge in Arkansas has halted the execution of seven men beginning Monday night, throwing another wrench into the state's plans to carry out the executions before its lethal injection drugs expire.

U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker ordered the preliminary injunction early Saturday, reports the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. This ruling came less than 24 hours after the state's supreme court stayed one execution, and a county court delayed the rest.

The Democrat-Gazette cites Baker as writing, "there is a significant possibility that plaintiffs will succeed on the merits of their Eighth Amendment challenge to Arkansas's lethal injection protocol."

The paper goes on to report:

"Baker issued the ruling after presiding over a four-day trial on a case filed by the seven men. They were set to be executed two at a time between Monday and April 27, with lethal injections scheduled on consecutive Mondays and Thursdays. ...

"The inmates' attorneys sought to temporarily block the executions, arguing that the compressed schedule increases the likelihood of potentially harmful mistakes. The quick pace also prevented the men from preparing an adequate defense, which violates their federal due-process rights, the lawyers argued.

"Arkansas has not executed an inmate since 2005 due to both legal challenges and difficulty in maintaining a drug supply. Gov. Asa Hutchinson set the 11-day schedule as the expiration of one of the drugs in the state's three-drug lethal cocktail neared. Midazolam, set to expire at the end of April, is an anesthetic given before the injection of fatal drugs."

Before Baker's injunction, Pulaski County Judge Wendell Griffen had issued a broader temporary restraining order following an earlier one Friday by the Arkansas Supreme Court, which had stayed the execution of Bruce Ward. According to his attorney, Scott Braden, Ward is mentally ill and "has no rational understanding of the punishment he is slated to suffer or the reason why he is to suffer it."

Braden also states:

"We are grateful that the Arkansas Supreme Court has issued a stay of execution for Bruce Ward so that they may consider the serious questions presented about his sanity. He deserves a day in court for that, but in Arkansas the rules do not permit that. Instead, they give the power to director of the department of corrections to decide whether the department can execu

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read full article at source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/14/523948641/courts-block-7-executions-set-for-11-day-span-in-arkansas