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Attorney General Asks Governor To Set Next Execution

Jack Gordon Greene, 62
AR Dept. of Corrections
Jack Gordon Greene, 62
Jack Gordon Greene, 62
Credit AR Dept. of Corrections
Jack Gordon Greene, 62

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge today has asked Gov. Asa Hutchinson to set the next execution, this after the state made international news for scheduling eight executions in 11 days in April in order to make use of a lethal injection drug set to expire May 1.

Arkansas's three-drug execution protocol calls for midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride, in that order. The state's supply of midazolam expired May 1. The state doesn't have any alternative protocol to execute anyone sentenced to death. 

Exactly 13 days ago, the state received a fresh supply of midazolam, according to Arkansas Department of Corrections spokesman Solomon Graves. 

According to Arkansas law, where the state obtained its lethal injection supply is not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

Rutledge's two page letter requests Hutchinson set a date for Jack Gordon Greene. 

The attorney general says Greene's case is one that has done circles in the courts and currently has no legal stays or obstacles to execution. According to her letter, Greene has thrice been sentenced to death by a jury. He is convicted of murder in North Carolina and Arkansas.

In 1991, Greene bound and gagged and shot dead preacher Sidney Jethro Burnett, 69, in his home in Johnson County on July 23, this after killing his brother, Turner "Tommy" Greene, 45, earlier that month.

This story is produced by Arkansas Public Media. What's that? APM is a nonprofit journalism project for all of Arkansas and a collaboration among public media in the state. We're funded in part through a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with the support of partner stations KUAR,  KUAF,  KASU and KTXK. And, we hope, from you! You can learn more and support Arkansas Public Media's reporting at  . Arkansas Public Media is Natural State news with context.

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Bobby Ampezzan is a native of Detroit who holds degrees from Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA) and the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville). He's written for The Guardian newspaper and Oxford American magazine and was a longtime staff writer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The best dimestore nugget he's lately discovered comes from James Altucher's Choose Yourself (actually, the Times' profile on Altucher, which quotes the book): "I lose at least 20 percent of my intelligence when I am resentful." Meanwhile, his faith in public radio and television stems from the unifying philosophy that not everything be serious, but curiosity should follow every thing, and that we be serious about curiosity.