The State of Arkansas's Unprecedented Killing Spree

By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News

14 April 17

he state of Arkansas, beginning on April 17 and continuing for 10 days, will execute seven men. Governor Asa Hutchinson is pushing this frenzy of death because the state’s lethal injection chemicals are due to expire. He has to kill them as quickly as he can; otherwise, he runs the risk of (gasp!) not being able to give anybody a lethal injection as state and federal courts grapple over whether the lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. This is the America we live in. And Arkansas is a state run by self-professed evangelical Christians who purport to value the sanctity of human life.

Hutchinson has told the press that he must order this unprecedented killing spree because the state’s supply of midazolam, a powerful sedative that has been blamed for botched executions in at least four other states over the past year, expires this month. The governor simply isn’t sure that Arkansas will be able to get more of the drug, or, even if it can, if it will be allowed to use it. So he’s decided to execute all seven men while he has the opportunity.

Besides being immoral and unethical, the killing schedule is likely illegal, too. In order to speed the process, Hutchinson is allowing each prisoner only one hour to beg for clemency from the state clemency board. Prisoners are normally granted two hours to argue their cases. Arkansas prisoners also are normally granted 30 days to make a final appeal. Now they have as many days as there are between the denial of clemency and their scheduled executions between April 17 and April 27. Thirty days be damned.

I’m no bleeding heart. All seven of these prisoners are convicted murderers. Press reports of their crimes are shocking and give the kind of details that would make most people sick to their stomachs. I served in prison with murderers, including with a serial killer who reportedly killed young prostitutes all along Interstate 80 in the western states. I’m under no illusion that people like these seven should be set free.

But we’re supposed to be better than this. We’re supposed to be a “shining city on a hill,” as Ronald Reagan quoted John Winthrop, a place that the rest of the world admires and aspires to be like. We love to claim to other countries that we’re a paragon of respect for human rights.

But what makes the state of Arkansas any different from Saudi Arabia, where the government also conducts mass executions? Or Iran? Or North Korea? Asa Hutchinson is proving himself to be the Arkansan Kim Jong Un. The only difference is that Hutchinson uses a hypodermic needle and Kim uses an anti-aircraft gun.

And where is the Supreme Court in all of this? Over the past two years, the nine (or eight) justices have slowed executions by modifying or overturning death penalty laws in states like Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio, and Texas, while upholding the death penalty laws in Arizona and California. There’s no clear direction on the death penalty from the Supreme Court. And the justices don’t seem to have the stomach to take on the death penalty as a philosophical question: Can state-sanctioned killing be legal while concurrently being immoral and unethical?

I think the answer is clearly “No.” Remember, real leaders lead and allow their followers to catch up with them. The country is in desperate need of leadership on this issue right now. And we aren’t getting it from any of the three branches of government. How many more people will die before we conclude as a nation that the practice of putting people to death – any people – is as barbaric as the actions of our worst enemies?

John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act – a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.

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