Death Penalty · Conservative Voices
Arkansas Conservatives Concerned Launches With Former Republican Senator Jeremy Hutchinson at the Helm
The national network of conservatives who question capital punishment has opened a chapter in a state that tried to execute eight men in 11 days, carried out four, and hasn’t carried out one since.
Arkansas knows what a rushed execution schedule looks like.
On Thursday, October 29, 2026, Conservatives Concerned, the national network of political and social conservatives who question whether the death penalty fits conservative principles, announced the launch of Arkansas Conservatives Concerned, its newest state chapter. The group will be led by Jeremy Hutchinson, a former Republican state senator and representative who chaired the Arkansas Senate Judiciary Committee. The chapter’s mission is to bring more conservatives into a statewide conversation about whether capital punishment is compatible with limited government, fiscal responsibility, accountability and human dignity.
What the New Chapter Plans to Do
Arkansas Conservatives Concerned says it will recruit and mobilize conservatives across the state through public education, community outreach, coalition building and direct engagement with policymakers. The aim is to raise what the organization calls practical and moral questions about capital punishment and to encourage conservatives to weigh the death penalty against the values they already hold. Hutchinson said he wants to build a statewide network of conservatives willing to ask tough questions about the death penalty, and that Arkansans deserve an honest examination of whether capital punishment is an effective use of government resources.
The framing is deliberate. Conservatives Concerned does not argue from the outside. It makes the case that three conservative ideas, fiscal discipline, skepticism of concentrated government power and respect for human dignity, all point in the same direction. A death penalty system is expensive, with decades of appeals and specialized litigation. It hands the state an irreversible power over citizens, which conservatives have traditionally been reluctant to do. And it carries the risk of error that cannot be corrected, a risk Arkansas has seen up close. The chapter’s launch material notes that one person has been exonerated from the state’s death row.
“The death penalty does not make us safer, is not a deterrence to crime and is not the best use of public safety.”Ray Hobbs, former director of the Arkansas Department of Corrections
The Man Leading It
Hutchinson’s path to this role is unusual, and he does not hide it. He is a former Republican state senator, the nephew of former governor Asa Hutchinson, and a lawyer with degrees from Harding University and the University of Arkansas School of Law who practiced in Arkansas and Texas, including pro bono work for underserved communities. In the Senate, he sponsored legislation on mental health and addiction recovery services and worked with criminal justice reform organizations. Then came the fall. He pleaded guilty in 2019 to conspiracy to commit federal program bribery and to filing a false tax return, in a corruption scandal that involved several Arkansas lawmakers and a Missouri nonprofit, and he was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. In May 2025, President Donald Trump granted him a full pardon, years before his scheduled release in 2029.
Hutchinson says the experience shaped his thinking about the justice system, and he now points to restorative justice, rehabilitation, reentry and second chances as the focus of his work. Critics will note the conviction. Supporters will say it gives him a firsthand view of the system that most advocates lack. Either way, he is an unusually visible Republican to carry this message in a state where the party dominates.
Who Is Standing Beside Him
The chapter launched with the support of several well known Arkansas figures. Ray Hobbs, the former director of the state Department of Corrections, argues that capital punishment does not improve public safety. Leon Holmes, a former federal district judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and Larry Pillow, the former senior pastor of Second Baptist Church in Conway, are among the conservatives named as questioning the death penalty. Between them, they speak for the corrections, legal and faith communities, three constituencies whose views carry real weight in Arkansas politics.
The launch also included a note of dissent. Donnie Copeland, a former Republican state representative, said he does not share the organization’s position on the death penalty but appreciates its questions about states’ rights, public safety, individual liberty and the dangers of unchecked government power over citizens. It is an honest reflection of the state of the debate. Plenty of Arkansas conservatives support capital punishment, and the new chapter is not claiming otherwise. What it is claiming is that the questions deserve a hearing from people on the right.
The chapter’s argument
The death penalty is costly and slow compared with other sentences.
Irreversible state power should face the highest scrutiny.
The risk of error is real, and the state has had an exoneration.
The case on the other side
Some murders warrant the most serious punishment.
Capital punishment honors victims and delivers justice.
Concerns about process are reasons to fix the system, not end it.
A State That Stopped Midstream
Arkansas has not carried out an execution since April 2017. That month, facing the expiration of its supply of the sedative midazolam, the state scheduled eight executions in a little over a week and a half and carried out four: Ledell Lee on April 20, Jack Harold Jones and Marcel Williams on April 24, and Kenneth Williams on April 27. It was the first double execution in the country in 17 years. Legal fights reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected the argument that the accelerated schedule was cruel and unusual punishment, and the other four men were not executed. Since then, the state has maintained a death row of about two dozen men, listed at 23 as of April 2026, even as questions have persisted about the reliability, fairness, cost and effectiveness of the system.
The state has tried to find a way forward. In March 2025, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law adding nitrogen gas as an execution method, making Arkansas the fifth state to allow it, after legislative votes of 67 to 23 in the House and 26 to 9 in the Senate. Death row prisoners sued to block the law later that year. Whether Arkansas resumes executions, and how, remains unresolved, which is exactly the opening a new advocacy chapter is looking for.
Why a State Chapter Matters
Conservatives Concerned traces its roots to Montana and launched nationally in 2013. Its model is state by state: recruit local conservatives who can speak credibly to their neighbors, then build relationships with legislators. That approach has contributed to repeal in states such as New Hampshire and Colorado, and Republican lawmakers have sponsored repeal bills in others. In a state where executions have been stalled but not abolished, a chapter led by a former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee gives the effort something it lacked, an insider who understands how bills move.
What to Watch
- April 2017Arkansas executes four men in 11 days, then stops.
- March 2025Governor Sanders signs a law allowing nitrogen gas executions.
- May 2025Jeremy Hutchinson receives a presidential pardon.
- October 29, 2026Arkansas Conservatives Concerned launches with Hutchinson as director.
- NextOutreach to legislators, faith leaders and conservative organizations across the state.
The launch is a start, not a result. The chapter has no events scheduled yet and no legislation attached to its name. But it enters a debate that is moving. Florida is closing in on its own annual record for executions, and the pace has prompted questions even among some conservatives. Arkansas offers a different lesson, the experience of a state that hurried, stopped, and has been living with the aftermath for almost a decade. The new chapter is betting that a conservative who looks at that record and asks what it cost, what it accomplished and who answers for the mistakes will find a receptive audience at home.
