Arkansas lawmakers are struggling to find enough volunteers to watch eight death row inmate executions scheduled in April, reports said.
State law requires 6 to 12 witnesses per execution to ensure that it’s carried out, but there’s a shortage of people willing to watch the gruesome scene.
At a Little Rock Rotary Club meeting Tuesday evening, the Director of the Department of Correction hosted a presentation, and then “casually asked the audience to volunteer as citizen witnesses for the state’s upcoming executions,” according to an NBC Arkansas affiliate.
“Temporarily there was a little laugh from the audience because they thought she might be kidding… it quickly became obvious that she was not kidding,” Bill Booker, the acting substitute president of the club, told the outlet.
“It’s a very sobering thought.”
A spokesman for the DOC told the station they are taking informal approaches to find witnesses and are confident they’ll have enough in time for the executions, scheduled between April 17 and 27.
The Arkansas Attorney General’s office released a statement on the morbid order of business, saying she’s “fully committed to working with the Governor and the Department of Correction to ensure that the law is followed as executions are carried out.”
Interested volunteers are encouraged to write to the DOC Director if they want to watch.