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(CNN)Eight men are scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Arkansas in the space of just 10 days, according to Gov. Asa Hutchinson's office.
The state -- which has not put anyone to death for 11 years -- plans to execute the men in pairs between April 17 and April 27.
"This action is necessary to fulfill the requirement of the law," Gov. Hutchinson said in a statement sent to CNN on Thursday. "But it is also important to bring closure to the victims' families who have lived with the court appeals and uncertainty for a very long time."
So many executions in such a short amount of time is "unprecedented" in the United States, a spokesman for a group that monitors US executions said.
Since the resumption of the use of the death penalty in 1977, only twice has a state conducted eight executions in a single calendar month, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. That was Texas in May and June of 1977. But,"No state has ever conducted eight executions over a 10-day period," Dunham said.
Thirty-one states currently administer the death penalty and lethal injection is the primary means of execution in all of them. The number of executions carried out in the United States fell to a 25-year low in 2016.
Death penalty opponents were quick to criticize the planned executions.
"The Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (ACADP) is outraged by ... plans to carry out eight executions within the span of ten days in April," the organization said. "This planned mass execution is grotesque and unprecedented."
Attorneys for the eight men are attempting to block the executions.
Arkansas plans to execute eight inmates over 10 days in April. They are:
April 17:
- Bruce Earl Ward. Sentenced to death in 1997 for capital murder.
- Don William Davis. Sentenced to death in 1991 for capital murder.
April 20
- Ledelle Lee. Sentenced to death in 1995 for capital murder.
- Stacey Eugene Johnson. Sentenced to death in 1997 for capital murder.
April 24
- Jack Harold Jones. Sentenced to death in 1996 for capital murder.
- Marcel W. Williams. Sentenced to death in 1997 for capital murder.
April 27
- Kenneth D. Williams. Sentenced to death in 2000 for capital murder.
- James F. McGehee. Sentenced to death for capital murder.
Source: Arkansas Department of Corrections
They argue that Midazolam -- the drug used to render inmates unconscious before they are given two more drugs that paralyze and kill them -- does not effectively keep those being executed from experiencing a painful death.
The second drug, pancuronium bromide, paralyzes the inmate. The third, potassium chloride, brings on cardiac arrest and stops the heart.
"Unless the prisoner is unconscious, then drugs two and three will cause pain -- torturous punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment, and state guarantees against cruel and unusual punishment," said Jeffrey Rosenzweig, an attorney for three of the inmates.
He pointed to what he said were "botched executions" in several states that also involved Midazolam.
The following year, concerned about the use of sodium thiopental in executions, Illinois-based Hospira stopped making the drug, and Denmark-based Lundbeck banned US prisons from using its pentobarbital.
The United Kingdom also introduced a ban on exporting sodium thiopental, and the European Union also has taken an official stance -- by approving trade restrictions on goods used for capital punishment and torture.
States have since turned to Midazolam as a substitute, but Dunham said there is no clear reason why. "There has been a herd mentality when it comes to execution drugs and procedures," he said, and after one state was able to carry out an execution using Midazolam, others followed.
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