Arkansas' latest effort to execute an inmate got stymied last week.
The state Supreme Court stopped the planned execution of Jack Greene, a North Carolina man who was convicted in the 1991 murder of Sidney Burnett, a retired pastor, in Johnson County.
The delay comes as a relief to some but frustrates others in a state that has shown continued support for capital punishment.
Greene was scheduled to die on Thursday but the state's high court granted an emergency stay of the execution, which would have been Arkansas' fifth this year.
The state carried out four executions in April. They were Arkansas' first in almost 12 years.
Three other planned executions were halted by the state Supreme Court. And a federal judge stopped one more as the courts interrupted a controversial plan by Arkansas officials to conduct eight executions over an 11-day span.
Drugs acquired for use in lethal injections were about to expire, prompting the state's attempt to resolve so many cases so fast. The plan drew a lot of attention to Arkansas, especially from death penalty foes in and out of the state.
Nevertheless, a recently released Arkansas Poll just confirmed the death penalty has strong support within the state. A full 72 percent of those interviewed in the annual poll conducted by University of Arkansas researchers favor the death penalty for murder convictions.
That's not the trend nationally, where support for the death penalty has been steadily declining.
Anyway, it is the law in Arkansas and Gov. Asa Hutchinson is trying to see it through.
Arkansas obtained a new batch of execution drugs, allowing the governor to schedule Greene's execution, but a related court case has since forced the state to reveal the manufacturer. The manufacturer objects to the use of its drug in executions.
Actually, there are three different drugs used in Arkansas executions and the manufacturers of all three, all of whom have now been revealed, have asked the state not to use their products in executions.
It is an as-yet-unresolved complication to the state's effort to execute Greene or anyone else.
A 2015 state law was intended to keep secret the source of execution drugs, but the Supreme Court ruled a week before Greene's scheduled execution that the law does not extend to manufacturers.
The justices sent the case back to a state judge, who has since ordered prison officials to release package inserts from its supply of midazolam, one of the drugs used in the state's injection protocol.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Mackie Pierce will hold a hearing this week to determine what information from the label may lawfully be withheld.
Prison officials have said they paid an unnamed supplier $250 cash for enough midazolam for two executions.
The bigger question isn't about the drugs, although that's serious enough. The bigger question is whether Greene is competent enough to understand his punishment.
Attorneys for Greene had asked the court to stay his execution, contending he is severely mentally ill. They want the man they say is delusional to have an independent hearing about his current mental state.
The attorneys are specifically challenging an Arkansas law that gives authority to determine the competency of an inmate to the state's top prison official. A lower court dismissed the challenge, but Greene's attorneys want the Supreme Court to review that decision.
In its one-page 5-2 ruling, the Supreme Court didn't state its reasoning for the stay.
Both Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said they were disappointed with the ruling.
The last-minute delay prolongs the justice the victim's family was promised more than 20 years ago, the governor said.
There is no question that Burnett suffered a brutal death. He was beaten with a can of hominy, stabbed and shot.
What's more, Greene has admitted he killed Burnett after driving to Arkansas from North Carolina where he had killed his own brother just days before.
Greene was found competent before trial. But the question remains. Is he competent now, two decades since his conviction?
Commentary on 11/15/2017