The southern US state of Arkansas, rushing to execute several inmates before a lethal drug expires at the end of the month, has carried out the first of two executions scheduled for Monday, the attorney general said.
A US judge temporarily halted the second of Arkansas's two planned executions late on Monday after the inmate's lawyers argued that the first execution was inhumane due to a flawed procedure.
The stay came just minutes before Williams, 46, was scheduled to begin undergoing the lethal injection process and approximately an hour after Jack Jones, 52, was pronounced dead by state officials.
Williams' lawyers filed a last-minute appeal claiming that Jones was still moving more than five minutes after receiving a sedative that was supposed to render inmates unconscious.
Jones was convicted of raping and killing Mary Phillips, 34, in 1995 and trying to murder her 11-year-old daughter. He also was convicted of rape and murder in Florida.
Williams was convicted of the 1997 kidnapping, rape and murder of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson. He also abducted and raped two other women.
The last time a US state executed two people in one day was 2000 in Texas.
(Source: Reuters, AFP)
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