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Arkansas Supreme Court Decision Allows New DNA Testing in Case of the ​“West Memphis Three,” Convicted of Killing Three Children in 1993

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On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence. 

Missouri: Proposed bill would give death row inmates option to donate organs

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Missouri's death chamber
JEFFERSON CITY - Rep. Jim Neely, R-Cameron, proposed a bill Tuesday that would give death row inmates the option to donate their organs.

House Bill 630 would require lethal injections to be administered in a way that would not affect the inmates' organs.

It would be a way for inmates to "pay restitution to society," Zach Sanders, Executive Director of Missouri Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, said.

Rep. Neely worked closely with Sanders last year to reform Missouri's execution protocol, according to a press release.

If passed, the bill would go into effect in August.

The state is not currently required to offer alternative methods for execution.

Asphyxiation by inhalation of pure nitrogen has been approved in Oklahoma and recently won approval from Alabama lawmakers. Inhalation of nitrogen gas is fatal because nitrogen displaces the oxygen necessary for human life. 

Documents filed with the Supreme Court say Missouri "does not currently have a protocol in place for execution by lethal gas." 

The State's only gas chamber not only is inoperable; it sits in a museum. Nothing in the record suggests it could readily become operational.

Missouri's lethal injection procedures have not caused any inmates to show obvious signs of distress during execution. But the means by which the state obtains the drugs — reportedly by exchanging envelopes full of cash for vials of pentobarbital — has raised concerns, as has Missouri's refusal to voluntarily name its supplier.

Missouri law still allows execution by "the administration of lethal gas."

Sources: komu.com, news-leader.com, January 24, 2019, March 21, 2018


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Missouri, USA
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