Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has officially asked Gov. Asa Hutchinson to set execution dates for 8 death-row inmates who have exhausted all appeals.
The request Tuesday came after a 10-year hiatus on executions in the state because of legal challenges to the state's death-penalty procedures.
The last execution - Eric Nance, convicted of murdering 18-year-old Julie Heath of Malvern in 1993 - was carried out in November 2005 by using a 3-drug cocktail of phenobarbital, a paralytic agent and potassium chloride.
The Arkansas Department of Correction recently obtained the execution drugs, 1 of which was midazolam.
The use of the drug was challenged in federal court after a handful of botched executions.
Death-penalty opponents claimed that the drug does not induce a complete level of unconsciousness, which allows the inmate to feel pain.
Source: arkansasonline.com, Sept. 1, 2015