The lawsuit filed by the five news organizations is available in Adobe .pdf format, as is the other lawsuit, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press & McDaniel v. Missouri Department of Correction.
Today's New York Times reports, "News Groups Sue for Data on Missouri’s Executions," by Julie Bosman.
The lawsuit contends that the disclosure of drug sources “promotes the functioning of the process itself and is essential for democracy to function.” It added, “The public cannot meaningfully debate the propriety of lethal injection executions if it is denied access to this essential information about how individuals are being put to death by the state.”
The Guardian spearheaded the lawsuit, but after Mr. Lockett’s execution, it was joined by The Associated Press, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Kansas City Star and The Springfield News-Leader. The news organizations said the Department of Corrections had routinely provided information on the drugs, but “unilaterally changed course” in October 2013 and began to deny access. Since then, six Missouri inmates have been executed, without the state’s “revealing the source or quality of the drugs used to inflict death.”
The Department of Corrections has responded to requests for information by invoking the state’s so-called Black Hood Law, which protects the identities of people who provide direct support to executions, the lawsuit said. The department did not return a phone call on Thursday.
"Journalists launch legal assault on Missouri execution secrecy laws," is by Matt Pearce for the Los Angeles Times.
Thursday's lawsuit in Missouri had been in the works for months -- and was filed the same day as a similar lawsuit by a St. Louis Public Radio reporter, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri.
Reporters involved in the lawsuits who spoke with the Los Angeles Times said they hadn't known about each other's lawsuits.
“Over a span of late October till now, [the Missouri Department of Corrections has] gradually been getting worse and worse about responding to open-records requests," said Chris McDaniel, a St. Louis Public Radio reporter who has been covering capital punishment in Missouri.
In December, after Missouri prison officials began to dole out redacted records, McDaniel published an investigation revealing that the state's execution drug supplier was an Oklahoma compounding pharmacy that wasn't licensed in Missouri.
"Media organizations filed a lawsuit to force Missouri to reveal the source of its lethal injection drugs," is by Mark Berman for the Washington Post.
This lawsuit, which comes less than a week before the next scheduled execution in the state, arrives as executions in the United States are facing heightened scrutiny after a widely publicized botched lethal injection in Oklahoma. But it also comes after years of states struggling to obtain the drugs needed for executions, which has caused officials to use unproven drug cocktails, secretly hand drugs across state lines and, in some states, conceal the sources of the drugs.
In the lawsuit, which was filed in the Circuit Court of Cole County, Mo., the news organizations say that they repeatedly tried to locate information about the drugs for the lethal injection under the state’s Sunshine Law, but the state declined.
The public has a right to learn “the composition, concentration, quality, and source of drugs used in lethal injection executions,” according to the suit.
"Media file lawsuit challenging secrecy of Missouri execution drug," is at CBS News.
Missouri is among the many U.S. states that refuse to disclose where they purchase execution drugs, their makeup and how they are tested.
The sourcing of execution drugs has become an issue countrywide 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.
"Associated Press and The Guardian join media push for details on lethal injection mix," is by AFP, via Raw Story.
Time posts, "Newspapers Sue Missouri Over Execution-Drug Secrecy," by Denver Nicks and Josh Sanburn.
"Media organizations launch lawsuit over Missouri lethal injection secrecy," is by Justin Scuiletti for PBS NewsHour.
Mother Jones posts, "News Organizations Sue Missouri to Reveal the Contents of Its Execution Drugs," by Mariah Blake.
"The AP and the Guardian Are Suing Missouri Over Its Death Penalty Secrecy," by Abby Ohlheiser at the Wire.
"News Organizations Sue Missouri Department Of Corrections Over Drug Executions," by Dan Margolies at KCUR-FM.
"Prison System Faces Lawsuit Alleging Lethal Injection Secrecy," at KOLR-TV.
The Guardian publishes commentary, "Why the US constitution gives you the right to know lethal injection's secrets," by Jane E. Kirkley.
In their lawsuit, the news organizations are not only arguing that the DOC is violating its own state law. They contend that the new policy also violates the First Amendment. They cite the unbroken line of supreme court decisions recognizing that public access to the criminal justice process is essential to preserve the integrity of the system and to promote public confidence in it. This constitutional right not only protects reporting information about what the government is up to; it protects the right to obtain the information in the first place.
Although the high court has not yet ruled explicitly that these rights extend to executions, history and experience support the argument. The death penalty – the ultimate expression of the state's power over human life and death – has always been subject to public oversight, and for good reason. The government executes prisoners in the name of the public. To have confidence in that process, the public must have as much information as possible about it. We should know how officials treat those who are paying the ultimate penalty. We cannot call ourselves a democracy if we cede this kind of activity to a secretive government in blind faith and without question.
That the DOC formerly made this information public but now chooses to suppress it – well, that is even more damning. In the words of retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting in the 1978 decision in another prison access case, Houchins v KQED, "concealing such knowledge from the public by arbitrarily cutting off the flow of information at its source" abridges both the freedoms of speech and the press.
Earlier coverage of the media lawsuits against the Missouri Department of Corrections begins at the link.
Comments