[JURIST] The Arkansas Supreme Court [official website] on Friday granted [order, PDF] an emergency stay of a lower court’s order for immediate disclosure of planned lethal injection drugs and their chemical suppliers. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen [official profile] ordered [text, PDF] the state on Thursday to release this information, siding with eight prisoners who claimed they have a right to know if the drugs planned for their executions will cause undue suffering. Griffen ruled that the suppliers have no right to avoid public criticism. The state supreme court has set a briefing schedule for the issue, and the prisoners’ executions remain suspended. In October Griffen stayed their executions [JURIST report], ordering the release of lethal injection data. One week later, the Arkansas Supreme Court also stayed their executions while simultaneously overturning [JURIST report] Griffen’s ruling, holding that circuit judges do not have the authority to halt executions.

Use of the death penalty [JURIST news archive] has been a controversial issue throughout the US and internationally. In October the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously granted [JURIST report] a request from Attorney General Scott Pruitt to halt all of the state’s scheduled executions to allow for an investigation into why the prison received incorrect lethal injection drugs. Oklahoma became the epicenter [JURIST report] of the lethal injection drug debate last year after the death of Clayton Lockett, a death row inmate who died of an apparent heart attack minutes after doctors called off a failed attempt to execute him. In May Nebraska lawmakers overrode [JURIST report] Governor Pete Ricketts’ veto on repealing the death penalty. In April the Tennessee Supreme Court postponed the execution [JURIST report] of four inmates on death row while it determines whether current protocols are constitutional, effectively halting all executions in the state.