An Arkansas death row inmate who was spared from execution two years ago is asking the state Supreme Court to allow new DNA testing of evidence that his attorneys say could exonerate him.
Attorneys for convicted murderer Stacey Johnson and for the state appeared before the Supreme Court Thursday over the testing requested of evidence from the 1993 killing of Carol Heath. Johnson is appealing a lower court’s ruling denying the request for additional testing.
Johnson was one of eight inmates Arkansas sought to execute in April 2017 before the state’s supply of a lethal injection drug expired. Johnson and three other inmates were spared by the courts.
Arkansas doesn’t have any executions scheduled. The last of the state’s lethal injection drugs expired in January and the state has not replaced them.
