To: Governor Asa Hutchinson
Stop the Arkansas Mass Executions
Do not proceed with your assembly line of executions. Since the modern death penalty was established in 1976, no state has attempted four double executions in ten days. And the execution drug, midazolam, is so controversial for causing botched executions that Florida and Arizona have stopped using it. Halt this cruel and unusual killing spree – it violates basic decency and is not justice.
Why is this important?
I have worked with some of the men scheduled to be executed. They were part of a creative writing workshop I led from May to October of 2016. I acknowledge they committed heinous crimes in the past, and I grieve for the families of their victims, but there is NOTHING to be gained by the state's killing of them.