22 August 2017 :

On August 4, Arkansas has announced that it has obtained new supplies of midazolam—the controversial drug used in botched executions in at least four states. Records obtained by BuzzFeed News show the director of the state corrections department, Wendy Kelly, paid $250 cash for 40 vials of midazolam - a sedative used as the 1st of 3 drugs in a lethal injection cocktail - on Aug. 4 and later filled out paperwork to be reimbursed for the purchase. A department spokesman said 40 vials is enough for 2 executions. Then, on August 17, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge asked Governor Asa Hutchinson to set an execution date for Jack Greene, described by his lawyers as “a severely mentally ill man with well-documented brain damage.”