The state-sanctioned killing is done for now, although many condemned inmates remain on Arkansas' death row wondering when, or if, they'll be executed.
Kenneth Williams, a confessed murderer, was the latest to die at our collective hand, the last of four men Arkansas executed by lethal injection over eight days.
He was among eight death-row inmates originally scheduled to be executed over an 11-day span in what was described as an Arkansas execution "spree." Instead, four were executed. Four others were granted temporary stays.
The people of this state still need to answer fundamental questions on the continued use of capital punishment.
Meanwhile, we face greater scrutiny from the nation and the world for setting that accelerated execution schedule in order to use the state's supply of midazolam before its scheduled expiration today. Midazolam is one of three drugs used in lethal injections in Arkansas.
On Thursday, when Williams was injected with the drug, witnesses said he lurched and convulsed 20 times. Another of the condemned men had moved his lips after he was injected with the drug, prompting questions about whether he was unconscious before other drugs were injected.
A spokesman for Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Friday that such movements are an involuntary muscle reaction and a widely known effect of the surgical sedative.
After his execution was carried out, Williams' attorneys called the witness accounts "horrifying" and demanded an investigation into what they called a problematic execution. The ACLU in Arkansas joined the call.
By contrast, J.R. Davis, the governor's spokesman, said Williams' execution and the others were "flawless."
The governor himself, who signed the death warrants for each of the condemned men, issued a statement after the last of the executions.
"The long path of justice ended tonight and Arkansans can reflect on the last two weeks with confidence that our system of laws in this state has worked," he said.
He has since said that he sees no reason for anything beyond a routine internal review of execution procedures after Williams' death. The Department of Correction will conduct the review.
Williams was convicted of multiple murders, including a 1998 killing of a University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff cheerleader, Dominique Hurd. He was serving life without parole when, three weeks after his conviction, he escaped and killed twice more before his capture. He murdered Cecil Boren, who lived near the Cummins prison unit, stealing a truck, then fled to Missouri, where he crashed into a water-delivery truck, killing the driver. While in prison, he said he had killed another person in 1998.
In a statement from the death chamber, Williams apologized "to the families I have senselessly wronged and deprived of their loved ones" and for his "inexcusable" crimes.
His crimes are the sort for which the death penalty is intended, although it is not consistently applied and questions are repeatedly raised about its constitutionality.
Notably, Gov. Hutchinson also said this week that the courts have upheld the use of midazolam and he doesn't think Arkansas needs to change its lethal-injection method.
Unclear is when or where -- or if -- the state can get a fresh supply of that or other drugs in the state's three-drug protocol for other executions.
Meanwhile, expect the more fundamental debate about the death penalty itself to go on.
Although Arkansas is regarded as being solidly in favor of capital punishment, these recent events and all the ensuing arguments must have had some effect on the collective psyche of Arkansans.
If nothing else, more people may have conflicted feelings about how the death penalty is administered if not about its use.
State officials, including Gov. Hutchinson, have talked about giving closure to the victims' families, as if that can ever happen.
The death-penalty process with its extended delays seems only to stretch the suffering of the families, some of whom waited more than 20 years to get this "justice," which not all of the victims' family members even wanted.
Those decades-long waits effectively eliminated any deterrent argument. Criminals typically believe they'll not be caught. And those who do get caught know they can expect to live on even under a death-penalty conviction.
Arkansas emptied four prison beds and caused the world to take notice of what is seen by many as a barbaric practice.
Did this string of executions stop murder in this state? No. Just check news accounts for the past few days.
Murder continued even as the death penalty was on full display.
Commentary on 04/30/2017