Arkansas, Nevada Obtain New Supplies of Drugs, Plan to Carry Out Two Questionable Executions

The states of Arkansas and Nevada have announced that they have obtained new sup­plies of exe­cu­tion drugs that will per­mit them to car­ry out two exe­cu­tions in what crit­ics have called questionable circumstances. 

On August 4, Arkansas obtained a sup­ply of mida­zo­lam—the con­tro­ver­sial drug used in botched exe­cu­tions in at least four states — pay­ing $250 in cash to an undis­closed sup­pli­er for 40 vials of the drug. Then, on August 17, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge asked Governor Asa Hutchinson to set an exe­cu­tion date for Jack Greene (pic­tured), described by his lawyers as ​“a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill man [with] well-doc­u­ment­ed brain dam­age.” Also on August 17, Nevada — which does not cur­rent­ly have an exe­cu­tion pro­to­col in place — announced that it had obtained drugs to exe­cute Scott Dozier, using a three-drug for­mu­la that no state has ever tried before. Dozier — who has waived his appeal rights and vol­un­teered to be exe­cut­ed — is sched­uled to die on November 14. 

In a press state­ment, Greene’s lawyer, John C. Williams, said “[c]apital pun­ish­ment should not be used on vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple like the severe­ly men­tal­ly ill.” Greene, he said, is men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent and suf­fers from delu­sions that ​“his spinal cord has been removed and his cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem has been destroyed.” Responding to this delu­sion, Williams said, Greene ​“con­stant­ly twist[s] his body and stuff[s] his ear and nose with toi­let paper to cope with the pain,” often caus­ing him­self to bleed. 

A spokesper­son for Hutchinson — who autho­rized Arkansas’s unprece­dent­ed attempt to exe­cute eight pris­on­ers over an eleven-day span in April — has indi­cat­ed that the gov­er­nor will set an exe­cu­tion date for Greene. 

To exe­cute Dozier, Nevada has indi­cat­ed that it will use an untried com­bi­na­tion of diazepam (Valium), fen­tanyl (an opi­od), and cisatracuri­um (a par­a­lyt­ic). The state has not yet announced how the drugs will be admin­is­tered. All but one of the pris­on­ers exe­cut­ed in Nevada since 1977 were found to have waived their appeals; Dozier would be the state’s 12^th death-row pris­on­er to vol­un­teer to be exe­cut­ed. Nevada recent­ly spent near­ly $900,000 on build­ing a new execution chamber.