Raises all sorts of practical and logistical questions, let alone the sort of ethical morass that it s hard to think through on something like this. but the company that makes this drug says it shouldn t be used for this purpose. other states, including oklahoma, which i highlighted earlier, have had a lot of problems with this drug, with midazolam. but the supreme court has weighed in specifically on the use of this drug and said it s okay to use midazolam as part of a lethal injection protocol. because of the supreme court s ruling there, that a settled matter? is that part of this case essentially no longer litigatable? no. that supreme court case that you re referring to, that was a very limited case with a highly differential legal review. so what the court is doing there is looking at the determinations made by the trial court and reviewing them under this highly differential standard to
And they apparently have no contingency plan on file in case any of this goes wrong. the expiring drug they want to use they ve never used before, it s the same drug that went so wrong in that oklahoma execution that caused that statewide freakout and a revision of all their protocols. but arkansas does not plan on heeding oklahoma s warning. they are planning on going forward on this execution spree. there is still time. there are still challenges being argued in state and federal courts. as of right now the first two skrugsz slated for monday, but tonight the drug companies who are implicated in this story against their will are trying to put their feet down to stop it too. that s a super interesting development in this and we ve more on that ahead. stay with us.
Went so terribly wrong that they were forced to call off the second one. it turned up evidence the stress and the pressure of planning to kill two people back to back on that same night, that may very well have contributed to the medical staff getting things so wrong in the first one and the whole thing falling apart. even though oklahoma is largely fine with the death pelty, sobbling in fact so thirsty for executing its prisoners, that they added the death penalty to the state constitution and they would consider bringing back the gas change of name of all things, in between oklahoma which is not squeamish about these things, they agree what they never want to do is two of these things in a row. never try that ever again. quote, executions should not be scheduled within seven calendar days of each other. 330 highway miles between the death row in oklahoma and the death row in arkansas.
well, it happened just a little while ago this evening. and so it was unexpected. and these are, you know, two pharmaceutical companies. i think they re related. it might just be one acting in their own interests. they have financial interests. they have pr interests. and they don t want their products used in executions. and so, you know, it s valuable to see yet another voice saying that midazolam is an inappropriate drug to use in this way. but for the sake of the prisoner, the bottom line is just that, that this drug is not appropriate for this purpose. one of the things that strikes me about this plan by arkansas, obviously trying to kill a lot of people all at once raises all sorts of practical and logistical questions, let alone the sort of ethical morass that it s hard to think through on something like this. but the company that makes this drug says it shouldn t be used for this purpose. other states, including oklahoma, which i highlighted earlier, have had a lot of
Rushing to get an unheard amount of executions off because drugs are about to expire by itself is a little chilling. consider a couple other things here. arkansas has never used this particular drug before to kill they ve never used this drug before. this will be their first time using it and they re tryinto use it at four double headers in ten days. the director of corrections in the state it s going to be overseeing this mass execution, he s never seen an execution at all. and they apparently have no contingency plan on file in case any of this goes wrong. the expiring drug they want to use they ve never used before, it s the same drug that went so wrong in that oklahoma execution that caused that statewide freakout and a revision of all
Fair. runs about a week. rides, hog races, an alligator show, there s a milking competition. big long border joined at the hip. a few years ago, oklahoma issued some official advise. oklahoma just emerged from an especially grisly botch execution. afr that dor which was a terrible doral and got them a lot of national attention because it went to terribly wrong, the state did a review. they looked into what had gone wrong. and they came out with a couple recommended fixes, for example, the state said it would be better to have a system of communications established new england staff during the execution since the one they sort of mac gooifrd during the botched execution literally involved a code where staff would push different colored pencils through holes in a wall in order to signal different
Oklahoma and arkansas share a long border just shy of 200 miles. oklahoma to the west, arkansas to the east. as you move along the border, there are parts of oklahoma and arkansas that kind of blend together, whether you are in westville or summers or remy or dora or octavia, as you hop across one side of the border to the other, it s hard to see where one state begins and one state ends. they share that border. they share the arkansas river. they even share a fair. it s the arkansas-oklahoma state fair. runs about a week. rides, hog races, an alligator show, there s a milking competition.
That it s hard to think through on something like this. but the company that makes this drug says it shouldn t be used for this purpose. other states, including oklahoma, which i highlighted eaier, havead a lot of problems with this drug, with midazolam. but the supreme court has weighed in specifically on the use of this drug and said it s okay to use midazolam as part of a lethal injection protocol. because of the supreme court s ruling there, that a settled matter? is that part of this case essentially no longer litigatable? no. that supreme court case that you re referring to, that was a very limited case with a highly differential legal review. so what the court is doing there is looking at the determinations made by the trial court and reviewing them under this highly differential standard to determine whether or not the findings that the trial court made based on the evidence before it, whether those findings were reasonable.
Oklahoma about what happened in oklahoma with their execution problem. we don t know, but right now the state of arkansas has scheduled not just one night of back-to-back executions, not two, not three, arkansas has scheduled four sets of back-to-back double header executions over a period of ten days starting monday. it s a mass execution. no state has executed this many people this fast since the country reinstated the death penalty in the 1970s. one of the biggest questions has been whether the judicial system can even absorb this many hearings. turnover last two weeks one of the courts blocked one of the the executions saying his clemency case deserves another
Involved a code where staff would push different colored pencils through holes in a wall in order to signal different medical information to each other. this didn t work so great. we should have a real communication system. they also advised everybody involved should in advance agree to use the same terms through the period of the execution, word like stop, or starks or halt. everybody should know in advance exactly what s expected to happen when a command like that is given. basic stuff, but that s how basically things went wrong. and then there was their big recommendation. quote, executions should not be scheduled within seven calendar days of each other. that execution that went so badly in oklahoma that led to this review that led to all these recommendations, that botched execution was actually supposed to be the first in a double header execution that night, but they lost control of the first one, the first one