Arkansas has new supply of lethal drug; AG seeks execution

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas has a new supply of a controversial lethal injection drug months after the state put four men to death over an eight-day period, officials said Thursday, as the attorney general asked the governor to set an execution date for an inmate.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge asked Gov. Asa Hutchinson to schedule an execution for Jack Greene, who was convicted in the 1991 killing of Sidney Jethro Burnett after Burnett and his wife accused Greene of arson. Rutledge said Greene has exhausted his appeals and there’s no stay of execution in place.

Arkansas executed four prisoners in April but had intended to put eight men to death. The state scheduled the executions to occur before its supply of midazolam, a sedative used in the state’s three-drug lethal injection process, expired. Department of Correction Spokesman Solomon Graves said the state obtained the new supply on Aug. 4 and it expires in January 2019.

Greene’s attorneys argue that the convicted killer is severely mentally ill, saying he suffers from a fixed delusion that prison officials are conspiring with his attorneys to cover up injuries he believes corrections officers have inflicted on him.

Read more: https://ktar.com/story/1698292/arkansas-ag-asks-governor-to-schedule-execution-for-inmate/