This morning, the Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic brought a lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Corrections, on behalf of a coalition of international, national and local media organizations, including The Associated Press, The Guardian US, The Kansas City Star, the Springfield (Missouri) News-Leader, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The lawsuit seeks the names of the compounding pharmacy(ies) from whom Missouri purchases lethal injection drugs for use in carrying out executions, and asserts claims under both the Missouri Sunshine Law and the First Amendment.
St. Louis Public Radio posts, "Suits Challenge Missouri Over Secrecy About Execution Procedures," by Margaret Wolf Freivogel, with material from AP.
Two suits were filed Thursday in Jefferson City challenging Missouri officials for failing to disclose information about the drugs the state uses in lethal injections.
In the first, The Associated Press and four other news organizations argue that the state's actions prohibit public oversight of the death penalty. The second suit, under the state sunshine law, was filed by Chris McDaniel, a reporter for St. Louis Public Radio, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri. It challenges the state's refusal to disclose information and documents relating to executions.
McDaniel, along with Veronique LaCapra, has reported extensively on Missouri's lethal injection process and disclosed the previous supplier of the drug to the state. He has numerous Sunshine Law requests pending to gain more information.
"Media file lawsuit to challenge execution secrecy," is the full AP report filed by Jim Salter. It's also available from the Springfield News-Leader.
The Associated Press and four other news organizations filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging the secret way in which Missouri obtains the drugs it uses in lethal injections, arguing the state's actions prohibit public oversight of the death penalty.
The lawsuit asks a state court judge to order the Missouri Department of Corrections to disclose where it purchases drugs used to carry out executions along with details about the composition and quality of those drugs.
"We assert that there is a constitutional right for the public to know the drugs that are used when a state puts someone to death," said Dave Schulz, an attorney for the news organizations and co-director of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School.
And:
The sourcing of execution drugs has become an issue nationwide since major drugmakers, many based in Europe, began to refuse selling their products if they were to be used in an execution.
Many states have turned to compounding pharmacies, which are not as heavily regulated as traditional pharmaceutical companies but are able to make the required drugs. Several have refused to name their supplier, sometimes citing security concerns and threats to the pharmacies.
Asked about these threats, law enforcement officials in several states have told the AP they do not know about them, are not actively investigating them or do not consider them to be serious.
"KC Star, others sue Missouri over execution drug secrecy," is by Tony Rizzo of the Kansas City Star.
The suit, filed in Cole County Circuit Court in Jefferson City, alleges that the corrections department is violating the Missouri Sunshine Law by denying repeated requests for information about the “composition, concentration, source and quality of drugs used to execute inmates in Missouri.”
By withholding access to information that historically has been publicly available, the department also is violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, according to the suit.
In separate court actions, attorneys for men facing execution in Missouri have unsuccessfully attempted to obtain information about the drugs.
They have argued that the information is needed to determine if executions are being carried out in a constitutional manner. If the drugs are not properly manufactured and administered, a prisoner could suffer pain and suffering that would violate the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment, they have contended.
Thursday’s suit makes a similar argument that public disclosure of the information “reduces the risk that improper, ineffective or defectively prepared drugs are used.”
“The constitution thus compels access to historically available information about the type and source of drugs used in lethal injection executions because disclosure promotes the functioning of the process itself and is essential for democracy to function,” according to the suit.
The Guardian posts, "Guardian challenges lethal injection secrecy in landmark Missouri lawsuit," by Ed Pilkington and Jon Swaine.
The growing secrecy adopted by death penalty states to hide the source of their lethal injection drugs used in executions is being challenged in a new lawsuit in Missouri, which argues that the American people have a right to know how the ultimate punishment is being carried out in their name.
The legal challenge, brought by the Guardian, Associated Press and the three largest Missouri newspapers, calls on state judges to intervene to put a stop to the creeping secrecy that has taken hold in the state in common with many other death penalty jurisdictions. The lawsuit argues that under the first amendment of the US constitution the public has a right of access to know “the type, quality and source of drugs used by a state to execute an individual in the name of the people”.
It is believed to be the first time that the first amendment right of access has been used to challenge secrecy in the application of the death penalty.
Deborah Denno, an expert in execution methods at Fordham University law school in New York, said that more and more states were turning to secrecy as a way of hiding basic flaws in their procedures. “If states were doing things properly they wouldn’t have a problem releasing information – they are imposing a veil of secrecy to hide incompetence.”
"Secret America: how states hide the source of their lethal injection drugs," is an interactive feature at the Guardian.
Earlier coverage from Missouri begins at the link. Related posts are in the journalism and lethal injection category index.
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