(AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court spared the life of an Arkansas inmate minutes before his death warrant was set to expire Monday, scuttling efforts to resume capital punishment after nearly 12 years in a state with an aggressive plan to carry out four double executions before its supply of a lethal injection drug expires. ET (midnight CT) — when Davis’ execution warrant was to expire — the US high court issued a statement: “The application to vacate the stay of execution of sentence of death entered by the Arkansas Supreme Court on April 17, 2017, presented to Justice (Samuel) Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”

The execution would have been the first in Arkansas since 2005. The request was filed Wednesday by the eight inmates for whom Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who had set the schedule of multiple executions, said the state would continue to push for the other lethal injections to be carried out. (AP) - The Latest on Arkansas' plan to execute several inmates before the end of April (all times local):

The Arkansas Supreme Court has halted one of two executions set for Thursday, saying the condemned inmate should have a chance to prove his innocence with more DNA testing. Ward has been on death row since 1990 for the strangulation death of 18-year-old Rebecca Lynn Doss. "We will respond to any and all challenges that might occur between now and the executions as the prisoners continue to use all available means to delay their lawful sentence,” said Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. (AP) — The Latest on Arkansas’ plan to execute several inmates before the end of April (all times local):

A group of Arkansas inmates is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block upcoming executions in the state, citing concerns with one of the lethal injection drugs. The Arkansas Department of Correction has not executed a death row inmate since 2005, and no state has ever successfully executed two inmates in one day with the sedative drug Arkansas plans to use. Don Davis not executed after U.S. Supreme Court upholds stay of execution

The State of Arkansas has not executed Don Davis, who was scheduled to be the first of seven inmates executed over a 10-day period. The state did challenge a stay granted to Davis; the last-minute U.S. Supreme Court ruling ensured that he would not enter the death chamber Monday. In a statement, Scott Braden, the attorney for both Davis and Ward, said his clients were “denied access to independent mental health experts, even though they clearly demonstrated that mental health issues would be significant factors at their trials. With the scheduled executions dominating much of the talk in Arkansas, one Conway woman reached out to us and asked us, "Does the death penalty deter crime?" Arkansas has never used sedative midazolam

At the heart of the federal court challenge to Arkansas’s death penalty protocol is a drug called “midazolam.”

It’s the latest battleground in the 50-year debate over capital punishment in the United States. The state Supreme Court also lifted a lower court ruling preventing the state from using another lethal injection drug that a supplier said was sold to be used for medical purposes, not executions.
The Supreme Court of the United States refuses to vacate a stay of execution issued by the Arkansas Supreme Court. Arkansas's highest court has also put on hold the execution of another inmate, Bruce Ward. The state had planned to execute eight inmates in eleven days. That schedule, as well as the use of the drug midazolam, sparked a broad range of legal challenges and humanitarian concerns about the executions. Today's planned execution of Don W. Davis would have been the state's first since 2005.