The state is set to carry out three more executions next week. The top photo, provided by the ADC, shows a bottle of Midazolam, with the manufacturer's information blacked out by the ADC. In text messages from Jenkins' phone, there is no mention that the drug would be used in executions.
Arkansas overcame a flurry of court challenges Thursday that derailed three other executions, putting to death an inmate for the first time in almost a dozen years as part of a plan that would have been the country's most ambitious since the death penalty was restored in 1976.
With Arkansas' executions looming, McKesson petitioned Gray for a temporary restraining order to bar the state from using the vecuronium bromide until the ownership of the drugs could be decided in court. Another execution scheduled for Thursday - of Stacey Johnson - was halted by the Arkansas Supreme Court to allow for advanced DNA tests Johnson says would prove he did not murder Carol Heath in 1993. McKesson Corp. says the state obtained the drug under false pretenses and that it wants nothing to do with executions.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson defended the unprecedented schedule because the state's supply of one of the lethal drugs expires at the end of April.
A federal appeals court had already rejected all stay requests from Lee Thursday night, and The Supreme Court ultimately did not intervene to stop his execution. Justice Stephen Breyer said the state didn't have an adequate reason to rush. Another inmate scheduled for execution next week has received a stay.
The company asked the state to return 10 vials of the drug.
Midazolam, a common sedative, has since 2013 been used to put prisoners to sleep before the deadly drugs are administered.
The use of vecuronium bromide has also faced legal pushback, with McKesson Medical-Surgical-a distributor for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer-accusing Arkansas of concealing its plans to use the drug for capital punishment.
Fresenius Kabi USA LLC of IL and West-Ward Pharmaceuticals Corp. of New Jersey stated in their petition that they have gone to great effort to keep their products from being used in lethal injections because they want their medications to be used to save lives and treat injuries and illnesses. Fresenius spokesman Matt Kuhn confirmed that President and CEO John Ducker wrote the letter as well as another sent in 2016 and one sent in recent weeks.
Lee was pronounced dead at 11.56pm - 11 minutes after the three drug lethal injection cocktail began to pump into his veins.
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The AP a year ago used redacted drug labels to identify Hospira, which was purchased by Pfizer, as the likely manufacturer of Arkansas' vecuronium bromide.
Midazolam is used for a number of medical purposes, including anesthesia and reducing anxiety.
Arkansas has carried out its first execution since 2005, just minutes before the expiration of the inmate's death warrant.
The death penalty was reinstated in America in 1976.
"Tonight the lawful sentence of a jury which has been upheld by the courts through decades of challenges has been carried out".
Mental health isn't the only concern in these cases.
"Unless the prisoner is unconscious, then drugs two and three will cause pain - torturous punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment, and state guarantees against cruel and unusual punishment", said Jeffrey Rosenzweig, an attorney for three of the inmates.
One business leader and vocal death penalty opponent found Arkansas' efforts to get around contracts between two private companies to be troubling. Prisons director Wendy Kelley has said the state has no way to obtain more midazolam or vecuronium bromide.
Attention will now turn to other impending executions in Arkansas.
"Among all the companies we've met and spoken to recently not one has brought up anything related to the state's executions", he said.
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