Arkansas executes fourth inmate in one week
on Apr 28, 2017 at 8:34 am
Without any recorded dissents, the Supreme Court last night declined to block the execution of Kenneth Williams. Williams was the fourth inmate executed in Arkansas in a week; the state had sought to execute eight inmates over a span of 11 days so that it could carry out the executions before one of the drugs in its lethal injection protocol expired, but four other inmates had their executions stayed. The 38-year-old Williams had been serving a life sentence without parole for the 1998 murder of Dominique Herd when he escaped from prison and murdered Cecil Boren, who lived near the prison. Williams stole Boren’s truck; driving the truck while trying to evade capture, Williams struck and killed another driver, Michael Greenwood. Williams was sentenced to death in 2000.
In filings yesterday at the Supreme Court, Williams argued that his execution should be put on hold to allow him to demonstrate that he is intellectually disabled and therefore cannot be put to death. But the justices were unwilling to step in. They issued orders denying Williams’ request for relief shortly after 11 p.m. EDT, the state began to administer the lethal injection a little less than an hour later, and Williams was pronounced dead at 11:05 p.m. CDT.
