LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas' attorney general asked Gov. Mike Beebe to set execution dates for seven death row inmates, according to letters obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel noted in the letters sent to Beebe late Thursday that six of the seven inmates are challenging the state's new lethal injection law and protocol, which calls for Arkansas to use a drug that has never before been used for lethal injections in the U.S.

However, McDaniel said there aren't any court orders in place preventing executions of those seven prisoners.

The Arkansas Supreme Court said earlier this year that such orders were dissolved when the justices struck down the state's lethal injection law in 2012. The court ruled that, in the old law, state legislators had ceded too much control over execution procedures to the Department of Correction.

So, legislators this year enacted a new law that says the state must use a lethal dose of a barbiturate. However, the new law leaves it up to the Department of Correction to pick the drug.

The AP reported last month that the state plans to use phenobarbital, which is used to treat seizures, in lethal injections from now on.

Source: AP, December 27, 2013