Arkansas' multiple execution plan in limbo after rulings

Published April 17, 2017

Protesters gather outside the state Capitol building on Friday, April 14, 2017, in Little Rock, Ark., to voice their opposition to Arkansas' seven upcoming executions. (AP Photo/Kelly P. Kissel) (The Associated Press)

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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