Arkansas court upholds execution protocol, drug secrecy law

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas can execute eight death row inmates, a split state Supreme Court ruled today in upholding a state law that keeps information about its lethal injection drugs confidential.

It has only seven days, however, before one of the drugs needed for the three-drug protocol expires, and it isn't clear when Arkansas will be able to resume its first executions since 2005.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said she would request new execution dates once the stays are lifted on the eight inmate executions. For the stays to be lifted before the drugs expire, Rutledge must ask the court to expedite the certification process, which generally puts the ruling into effect 18 days after it is issued.

"I will notify the governor once the stays of executions have been lifted so that he may set execution dates. I know that victims' families want to see justice carried out, and that is exactly what I will continue to work toward as Attorney General," she wrote in an emailed statement.

If no request to speed up the certification timetable happens, then the decision becomes final July 11. A paralytic drug, vecuronium bromide, expires on June 30, and the supplier has said it will not sell the state more.