Arkansas was proceeding with plans to conduct the nation's first double execution in more than 16 years after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the first to move forward, turning back the inmate's claims that his poor health could cause excruciating pain during the lethal injection. A federal judge temporarily halted a second execution Monday night in Arkansas after attorneys said in a court filing that the first execution for Jack Jones "appeared to be tortuous and inhumane.". The 8th Circuit rejected Jones' and Williams' requests for stays Monday, and the Arkansas Supreme Court said Monday it wouldn't reopen the men's cases and refused to issue stays. WASHINGTON — If no court steps in, Arkansas is poised to become the first state in more than 15 years to execute two people in one night — just four days after the state held its first execution in more than a decade and just days before one of its execution drugs expires. It was the first double execution in the United States since 2000.While Jones, 52, was executed on schedule, shortly after 7 p.m., attorneys for Williams, 46, convinced a federal judge minutes later to briefly delay his execution over concerns about how the earlier one was carried out. They claimed Jones "was moving his lips and gulping for air," an account the state's attorney general denied, but the judge lifted her stay about an hour later and Williams was pronounced dead at 10:33 p.m.In the emergency filing, Williams' attorneys wrote that officials spent 45 minutes trying to place an IV line in Jones' neck before placing it elsewhere. But earlier in April, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said he was fulfilling his responsibilities. The Arkansas Supreme Court and US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit had denied all pending requests for stays of execution for both Jones and Williams before 5 p.m. Eastern Time — sending both men's lawyers to the US Supreme Court for a final requests to stop the executions. In Jones' case, attorneys said he takes a daily dose of two medications to treat chronic pain, and they worry those drugs could desensitize him to the effects of midazolam, a sedative that is the first drug used in Arkansas' lethal injection protocol. But on Thursday, Ledell Lee became the first person to be executed in Arkansas since 2005, after the US Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the scheduling of the executions and the Arkansas Supreme Court overturned a ruling blocking the use of a different drug. ""I hope over time you can learn who I really am and I am not a monster," he said in the roughly 2-minute statement.Williams declined to make a final statement.Jones was sent to death row for the 1995 rape and killing of Mary Phillips. She was strangled to death with a coffee pot cord while her daughter Lacey was tied to a chair. Jones, sentenced in 1996 for raping and strangling Mary Phillips and attempting to murder her 11-year-old daughter, was scheduled to be put to death on Monday at 7 p.m. CDT (0000 GMT)at the Cummins Unit prison, about 75 miles (120 km) southeast of the state capital, Little Rock. "I forgive my executioners; somebody has to do it," wrote Jones, who had a leg amputated in prison because of diabetes and uses a wheelchair. He used a wheelchair and he'd had a leg amputated in prison because of diabetes.Williams' "morbid obesity makes it likely that either the IV line cannot be placed or that it will be placed in error, thus causing substantial damage (like a collapsed lung)," his attorneys wrote in an earlier court filing asking justices to block the execution.Both men were served last meals on Monday afternoon, according to Graves, the corrections department spokesman. His chest stopped moving two minutes after they checked for consciousness, and he was pronounced dead at 7:20 p.m.Asked why Jones' lips moved, Arkansas Department of Correction spokesman Solomon Graves said he understood that the inmate was apologizing to the department director, Wendy Kelley, and thanking her for the way she treated him.Williams was already in the death chamber when the temporary stay was issued. Williams had fried chicken, banana pudding, nachos, two sodas and potato logs with ketchup, Graves said.In recent pleadings before state and federal courts, the inmates said the three drugs Arkansas uses to execute prisoners - midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride - could be ineffective because of their poor health.Williams weighed 400 pounds, was diabetic and had concerns that the execution team might not be able to find a suitable vein to support an intravenous line.The poor health of both men, their lawyers claimed, could make it difficult for them to respond during a consciousness check following a megadose of midazolam. Williams, 46, weighs 400 pounds, is diabetic and has concerns that the execution team might not be able to find a suitable vein to support an intravenous line. The state shouldn't risk giving them drugs to stop their lungs and hearts if they aren't unconscious, they have told courts.The last state to put more than one inmate to death on the same day was Texas, which executed two killers in August 2000. LITTLE ROCK, Ark., April 24 (Reuters) - Two Arkansas killers were scheduled on Monday to become the first pair of convicts put to death on the same day in the United States in 17 years, barring a last-minute reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court. Oklahoma planned a double execution in 2014 but scrapped plans for the second one after the execution of Clayton Lockett went awry.Arkansas executed four men in an eight-day period in 1960. They would be the second and third inmates executed by Arkansas this month. The only quicker pace included quadruple executions in 1926 and 1930.Williams was sent to death row for the 1994 rape and killing of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson, whom he kidnapped from a gas station in central Arkansas.Authorities said Williams abducted and raped two other women in the days before he was arrested in Errickson's death. Authorities said Williams abducted and raped two other women in the days before he was arrested in Errickson's death. "I have a responsibility to the voters, I have a responsibility to my oath of office, but I also have responsibility to a higher power, God and eternity, and I understand that," he said. "I wish I could take it back, but I can't," Williams told the board.In a letter earlier this month, Jones said he was ready to be killed by the state. The letter, which his attorney read aloud at his clemency hearing, went on to say: "I shall not ask to be forgiven, for I haven't the right." "Including Jones and Williams, nine people have been executed in the United States this year, four in Texas, three in Arkansas and one each in Missouri and Virginia. Last year, 20 people were executed, down from 98 in 1999 and the lowest number since 14 in 1991, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Arkansas becomes the first U.S. state since Texas in 2000 to hold two executions on the same day as executes convicted murderers Jack Jones, Jr. and Marcel Williams.