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LITTLE ROCK—Arkansas will resume executing death-row inmates by lethal injection after a failed U.S. Supreme Court challenge to the method, Gov. Mike Beebe said Thursday.

Beebe expects to begin receiving death warrants from Attorney General Dustin McDaniel within the next 30 days for inmates who have exhausted their court appeals.

Officials will make only slight changes to the execution procedures to ensure that the state follow the high court’s ruling, Beebe said.

The announcement comes after a meeting Beebe held Thursday with McDaniel and requests by opponents of the death penalty to pause and ultimately abolish state executions. Despite their concerns, Beebe said he felt legally bound as the state’s top executive to carry out capital punishment as prescribed by the courts.

“Nobody does this lightly, but it is the law, it is the constitution and it is part of the oath that I took—to uphold the law,” Beebe told reporters after the meeting. “While I don’t relish it, we will carry out the law.”

He said he would remain open to discussing the merits of capital punishment.