Arkansas plans to put to death eight inmates over a span of 10 days next month, a pace of executions unequaled in recent U.S. history brought about by a looming expiration date for one of the drugs used in the state’s lethal injection process.

The eight men facing execution — four black and four white — are among 34 death row inmates in Arkansas, where capital punishment has been suspended since 2005 over legal challenges and difficulty in acquiring the drugs for lethal injections. All eight men were convicted of murders that occurred between 1989 and 1999, and proponents of the death penalty and victims’ rights in the state have been frustrated that the cases have dragged on so long.

In a statement Friday, Hutchinson said that it was necessary to schedule the executions close together because of doubts about the future availability of one of the three drugs the state uses in its lethal injection procedure. State officials have previously said that the expiration date would pass in April for Arkansas’ supply of midazolam, a drug that has been used in several botched and gruesome lethal injections in other states in recent years.

This week, Hutchinson signed proclamations setting four execution dates for the eight inmates between April 17 and 27. Two men would be put to death on each of the four dates. If Arkansas follows that timetable, it will be at a rate unmatched by any state since the United States resumed the death penalty in 1977, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit research group that opposes capital punishment.

The lawyers for the condemned men say they have some legal avenues of appeal still available, but that even a best-case scenario would most likely only entail an alternative form of execution.

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