Arkansas Death Penalty: State Buys Enough Sedative For 2 Executions

LITTLE ROCK, AR — Arkansas bought enough of a lethal injection drug to put two more inmates to death, and a death penalty expert says the state might have found itself a long-term supplier to help it eventually execute 30 inmates.

The state Department of Correction said Thursday it paid $250 in cash to buy midazolam for two executions. Midazolam sedates the inmates while the other drugs stop their lungs and hearts. A heavily redacted hand-written receipt shows the material was picked up in person Aug. 4.

"The $250 would lead me to believe they aren't buying from someone trying to benefit from a shortage," said Jen Moreno, a staff attorney with the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California Law School at Berkeley. (For more information on this and other Arkansas stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

With such a relatively small amount purchased — 40 vials — "maybe they have found a source," she said Friday.

The prison system isn't saying, citing state secrecy laws.

"The Department is declining to address your characterizations of its suppliers. However, we remain confident in our ability to carry out these sentences once a warrant is issued," spokesman Solomon Graves said in an email Friday.

Arkansas bought midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride in bulk in 2015, spending $24,226 in order to execute eight inmates. But the imminent expiration of the midazolam supply this spring led Gov. Asa Hutchinson to schedule eight executions over an 11-day period in April.

If the state has a supplier willing to provide Arkansas with drugs on an as-needed basis, the need to buy in bulk is gone.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge wrote to Hutchinson in February, shortly after a set of condemned killers lost a final set of appeals at the U.S. Supreme Court. Hutchinson set four double-executions about a week before the prison system said it had a complete set of drugs.

Inmate Jack Greene lost his final appeal May 1, just after Arkansas finished carrying out four executions in eight days. Rutledge didn't write to Hutchinson until Thursday. Her spokesman didn't know whether she had received a heads-up that a full set of drugs was again on-hand."

"I'm not aware of any conversation that took place between the attorney general and the Department of Correction," spokesman Judd Deere said. "There is not a requirement that we have drugs before sending a request to the governor that a date be set."

Arkansas has 30 people on death row — all men with appeals at different stages. Since Greene's are done, he is eligible to be executed. Jason McGehee also would be eligible for execution if Hutchinson denies a clemency recommendation he won in April.

Hutchinson spokesman J.R. Davis said Friday that the governor has not decided whether to grant McGehee mercy.

Greene was convicted in western Arkansas in the 1991 death of Sidney Jethro Burnett, who was stabbed and had his throat slit after being beaten with a can of hominy. Burnett and his wife had accused Greene of arson. McGehee, as a teenager, directed the beating and killing of a snitch in northern Arkansas.

Based on how much of its lethal drugs were used in April's executions, Arkansas now has enough midazolam to conduct two executions, enough vecuronium bromide for 15 and enough potassium chloride for 11.

By KELLY P. KISSEL, Associated Press

Photo credit: Arkansas Department of Corrections via AP