Arkansas governor sets execution for inmate, spares another
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas’ governor said Friday he will spare the life of a death row inmate whom the state planned to put to death earlier this year, but he also set a November execution date for another convicted killer.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson issued a proclamation scheduling a Nov. 9 execution for Jack Greene, marking the state’s first scheduled lethal injection since putting four men to death in April. The executions were the first in Arkansas since 2005.
The governor later said he planned to commute the death sentence of another inmate, Jason McGehee, who was among eight men originally scheduled for execution in April. The state scheduled those executions to occur before its supply of midazolam, a sedative used in the state’s three-drug lethal injection process, expired.
The state announced last week it had obtained a new supply of midazolam, and records showed the state paid $250 in cash for enough of the drug to conduct two executions. State law keeps the source of the state’s execution drugs secret, but the Department of Correction said the drug supply expires in January 2019.