Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson will set a date to execute 62-year-old Jack Gordon Greene, according to J.R. Davis, the governor’s spokesman. Leslie Rutledge, the state’s attorney general, sent a request on Thursday for the governor to schedule imposition of the death sentence.
On the same day that the governor’s office responded affirmatively to Rutledge’s request, Solomon Graves, the spokesman for the state’s Department of Correction (DOC), assured that there is a new supply of the sedative Midazolam on-hand to impose capital punishment.
Lethal injections have been on hold since April, which is when the state carried out death sentences of four inmates.
They were the first executed in Arkansas since 2005. Though eight death row inmates were originally designated for execution, the sedative used in the execution procedure protocol reached its expiration date.
State paid cash for sedative to cover two executions
Graves said the new batch of midazolam was attained August 4 and the drug will not expire until January 2019. The source of drugs, needed for the execution injection protocol, are not disclosed in accordance with a state law. According to documents released by the DOC, the state paid $250 cash for 40 bottles of midazolam – enough for two executions.
Greene’s legal options have run out. His appeals have been exhausted and no court has granted him a stay of execution.
He was sentenced to die for killing retired minister Sidney Jethro Burnett in 1991. Burnett, along with his wife had accused Greene of arson.
Three times may be a charm but equate with death for condemned inmate
Before Greene stabbed Burnett twice and slit his throat from ear to ear, he beat his victim with a can of hominy, prosecutors said.
Green had three trials resulting in death sentences. The first two sentencing decisions were overturned. Prosecutors in the first two trials used a separate case improperly “as an aggravating circumstance,” U.S. News& World Reported relayed.
Burnett’s widow wrote Greene a letter forgiving him. The court, however, said the letter didn’t reflect on the killer’s character and it didn’t count as a mitigating factor.
Green was not permitted to let jurors see the letter.
Inmate’s attorney asserts death row convict is incompetent
John C. Williams is an assistant federal public defender representing Greene. Williams asserts that Greene should not be executed because he is “severely mentally ill,” suffers delusions, and is not competent, according to U.S. News & World Report.
The four inmates put to death in April were the first in Arkansas to have midazolam administered in the injection protocol. Kenneth Williams was among the executed inmates. Witnesses said he convulsed 20 times before dying. Greene was not included in the four death row inmates whose executions were postponed. Three of the four whose deaths were delayed have appeals pending, according to U.S.
News & World Report.
Jason McGehee was the fourth inmate whose life was spared when the sedative the state needed had expired. The Arkansas Parole Board recommended the governor grant him clemency, a decision Hutchinson is weighing.
Calendar running out for condemned killer with state accused of lying for to get drugs
Arkansas is advancing Greene’s execution as cases involving a medical supply company wind their way before the state Supreme Court, as well as a lower court. McKesson Medical-Surgical is seeking to thwart the use of another drug needed for the injection cocktail protocol delivering death to condemned inmates. The supply company asserts that the state obtained its supply of vecuronium bromide under false pretenses.
