VARNER, Ark. — Arkansas officials are vowing to carry out a double execution later this week after the U.S. Supreme Court scuttled the state’s plan to resume capital punishment for the first time in nearly 12 years with a ruling minutes before a condemned man was scheduled to die.
The court’s decision late Monday was the second time Don Davis had been granted a reprieve. He was within hours of death in 2010.
It capped a chaotic day of legal wrangling to clear the obstacles Arkansas faced to carrying out its first executions since 2005.
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge says there are five scheduled executions remaining and no legal obstacles to carrying them out, although she expects lawyers for the inmates to file fresh court challenges.
The next two executions are scheduled for Thursday.