Arkansas completes fourth execution in a week, but not without apparent problems

As reported in this new NBC News article, the “lawyer of a convicted killer who was put to death by lethal injection Thursday has demanded an investigation after his client repeatedly convulsed during the ‘horrifying’ execution.” Here is more:

Media witnesses reported “coughing, convulsing, lurching, jerking” for a 10 to 20 second period during the execution of Kenneth Williams at the Cummins Unit, where the Arkansas death chamber is housed.

The allegations come amid questions around the use of the controversial lethal injection drug midazolam. The state’s stocks of the drug were due to expire and it has been racing to execute a record number of inmates — Williams was the fourth to be executed inside of a week.

“This is the most I’ve seen an inmate move three or four minutes in,” said Associated Press reporter Kelly Kissel, who witnessed his tenth execution Thursday night. Kissel explained that Williams “lurched” 15 times in quick succession, followed by five slower lurches, three minutes after the sedative midazolam was introduced.

Kissel said two other witnesses from local media organizations agreed with his assessment and also said that Williams could be heard after the microphone to the death chamber was turned off. Williams’ attorney called for an investigation and called the descriptions “horrifying.”

“This is very disturbing, but not at all surprising, given the history of the risky sedative midazolam, which has been used in many botched executions,” said Shawn Nolan, an attorney who had taken up Williams case two weeks prior to the execution. “What’s important right now is that all the information about tonight’s execution must be meticulously documented and preserved so that we can discover exactly what happened in that execution chamber.”

State officials pushed back against the allegations that the execution might have been “botched” and allegations it did not follow the protocol. J.R. Davis, spokesman for Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, described the lurches as “involuntary muscular reaction to the midazolam.” Though he had not witnessed the execution, he said the medical community supported the drug’s safe use and that this reaction did not mean the procedure had been painful….

Nolan, called Davis’ explanation “trying to whitewash the reality of what happened” and he called for a full investigation. “We tried over and over again to get the state to comport with their own protocol to avoid torturing our client to death, and yet reports from the execution witnesses indicate that Mr. Williams suffered during this execution,” Nolan said in a statement.

“Any amount of movement he might’ve had was far less than any of his victims,” said Jodie Efird, one of the victim’s daughters who attended the execution. Williams had been serving a life sentence for the Dec. 1998 murder of a University of an Arkansas-Pine Bluff cheerleader. Then 20, the inmate escaped after only serving a month at the Cummins Unit by hiding inside a barrel of pig slop that a garbage truck had removed from the prison grounds. The former gang member shot and killed Cecil Boren, stole his truck, led police on a high-speed pursuit and killed another man, Michael Greenwood, in a resulting car accident. A jury sentenced Williams to death for the 1999 murder of Boren, a 57-year-old former warden of the prison where Williams was executed….

Arkansas Department of Correction Spokesman Solomon Graves said that the lethal injection was administered at 10:52 p.m. local time (11:52 p.m. ET) and Williams was declared dead at 11:05 p.m. Williams, 38, was scheduled to die at 7 p.m. local time (8 p.m. ET). Williams’ execution was delayed more than three hours because of attempts by his lawyers before a state court and the U.S. Supreme Court to stop it. Shortly after 10 p.m. the U.S. Supreme Court declined to stop the execution.