LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Arkansas' already compromised plan to put eight men to death over 11 days is in limbo after a judge blocked the use of a lethal injection drug that a supplier says officials misleadingly obtained and the state's highest court halted the executions of one of the first inmates who had been scheduled to die.
A federal judge could further upend the plans, with a possible ruling on Saturday on whether to halt the executions over the inmates' complaints about the compressed timetable and the use of a controversial sedative in the lethal injections.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen granted a temporary restraining order Friday to McKesson, a medical supply company that says it sold vecuronium bromide to the state for medical purposes and not for executions.
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