Expert says Arkansas may have reliable source of execution drug

This undated photo provided by the Arkansas Department of Corrections shows Jack Greene. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge asked Gov. Asa Hutchinson to schedule an execution for 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.
This undated photo provided by the Arkansas Department of Corrections shows Jack Greene. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge asked Gov. Asa Hutchinson to schedule an execution for 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.

LITTLE ROCK-A death penalty expert says Arkansas' recent purchase of a lethal injection drug-in a small amount and at a cheap price-suggests the state has found a reliable supplier to help it move 30 inmates from death row to the execution chamber.

The state Department of Correction said Thursday it had paid $250 in cash to buy enough midazolam for use in two executions. A heavily redacted hand-written receipt shows the material was picked up in person on 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.

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 purchased midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride in bulk in 2015, spending $24,226 to buy enough of the chemicals to put eight inmates to death. The approaching expiration of its midazolam supply this spring led Gov. Asa Hutchinson to schedule eight executions in 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.

Midazolam sedates the inmates while the other drugs stop their lungs and hearts.

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Follow Kelly P. Kissel on Twitter at www.twitter.com/kisselAP

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