Arkansas prepares for first US double execution in 17 years

Arkansas will become the first US state in 17 years to hold two
executions on the same day, if two inmates are put to death as
planned on Monday evening.

Lawyers for Jack Jones and Marcel Williams are seeking stays of
execution on grounds of poor health.

Arkansas initially planned to execute eight inmates over 11 days
before a drug used in executions could expire.

On Thursday, Ledell Lee was put to death in the state's first
execution since 2005 .

Another inmate, Kenneth Williams, is due to be put to death on
Thursday, though his lawyers say he is intellectually disabled.
The remaining four of the eight planned executions have been
placed on hold by court order.

But the state's top prosecutor has vowed to overcome legal
obstacles and haul the condemned back to the death chamber.
The last time a US state executed two inmates on the same day
was in 2000 in Texas.

Both inmates due to be put to death on Monday have admitted
they are guilty.

Jones was convicted in 1996 of raping and strangling Mary
Phillips and attempting to murder her 11-year-old daughter.

He was also convicted of rape and murder in Florida.

Williams was sentenced to death in 1997 for kidnapping, raping
and murdering Stacy Errickson.

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He also abducted and raped two other women.

Jones is scheduled to be put to death at 19:00 local time
(midnight GMT) at Cummins Unit prison, while Williams is due up
next in the chamber at 20:15.

They applied on Sunday for a stay of execution to the 8th Circuit
Court of Appeals, which has yet to rule.

It is expected to be among a last-minute flurry of legal motions.
Jones and Williams argue that obesity and related conditions
mean midazolam, a sedative used in the three-drug cocktail for
lethal injections, may not work on them.

Attorneys for Jones say he could suffer from a "torturous death"
because he may be resistant to midazolam.

They say he is already taking high doses of two other drugs for a
host of maladies, including diabetes, high blood pressure and
neuropathy.

Lawyers for Williams say it may be difficult to find a vein on their
client for the lethal injection because he weighs 400lb (180kg).

A federal judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, last Friday rejected a
challenge on health grounds from Williams and Jones.

James Phillips, the husband of the woman murdered by Jones,
told the BBC: "It don't matter if they suffer a little bit as far as I'm
concerned, because my wife suffered big time.

"She was sexually abused in every way possible and as she was
suffering he took a cord off a coffee pot and strangled her.

"And I don't know how much meaner a man can get to do
something like that."

The state attorney general, Leslie Rutledge, says the inmates'
appeals are merely delaying tactics.

A lawsuit from the company that makes one of the execution
drugs has been among a wave of legal challenges to the state's
unprecedented execution schedule.

Arkansas Supreme Court last week threw out the manufacturer's
lawsuit, which had argued that the state did not make clear it
wished to use the supplies for executions.