The StandDown Texas Project

Lame Duck Legislative Session in Ohio

"Legislative proposal would shield source of Ohio lethal injection drugs, protect experts," is by AP Legal Affairs Writer Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

The names of companies whose drugs are used for lethal injection in Ohio would be shielded under legislation introduced Monday in a move some lawmakers hope will restart capital punishment in the state.

The legislation would also bar companies from entering into contracts prohibiting states from acquiring drugs for executions, and it would protect the identities of anyone involved in executions in Ohio.

The Republican-backed legislation, sponsored by state Reps. Jim Buchy and Matt Huffman and pushed by prosecutors, would also prevent information about a lethal injection drugmaker or distributor from being disclosed in court.

"Legislation introduced adding secrecy to executions," is by Alan Johnson of the Columbus Dispatch.

Legislation that Attorney General Mike DeWine and county prosecutors say is needed to move forward with executions in Ohio, but which would add a new level of secrecy to the process, was introduced today in the General Assembly.

State Reps. Jim Buchy, R-Greenville, and Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said House Bill 663 "will update current law pertaining to capital punishment by lethal injection through issuing confidentiality for persons and entities involved in the procurement of lethal injection drugs. It also voids agreements that prevent the supplying of any drug or combination of drugs to be used in executing a punishment by lethal injection.

And:

The Republicans lawmakers said in a statement that the proposal "follows findings issued by the Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio’s Death Penalty." However, the proposal, as written, includes none of dozens of recommendations made by the committee.

"Ohio lawmakers looking to keep execution drug sources secret," is by Marc Kovac of Dix News Capital Bureau, via the Wooster Daily Record.

Executions have been on hold for most of the year, after a federal judge stayed scheduled lethal injections while state prison officials consider changes to the execution process.

In August, U.S. District Court Judge Gregory L. Frost ruled "the state of Ohio and any person acting on its behalf is hereby stayed from implementing an order of execution of any Ohio inmate issued by any court of the state of Ohio until Jan. 15, 2015 or until further order from the court."

Frost issued a comparable stay earlier in the year, following the prolonged death of Dennis McGuire in January and a subsequent decision by the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to increase the dosage of two drugs used in lethal injections.

McGuire, who received a capital sentence for the rape and murder of a pregnant Preble County woman, was the first inmate executed using a new two-drug combination. The process took about 25 minutes, and witnesses described him gasping for breath.

Earlier coverage from Ohio begins at the link.  You can also jump to news of Ohio lethal injection issues.

Related posts are in the state secrecy and state legislation category indexes.

Ohio Prosecutors Back DeWine LI Secrecy Plan

"Ohio prosecutors demand immunity for execution drug makers," is the AP report filed by Andrew Welsh-Huggins, via the Guardian.  It's also available from HuffPost.

Ohio prosecutors want the identities of pharmacists who create specialty doses of execution drugs shielded, and say doctors who consult with Ohio about its execution process should be given immunity from regulatory discipline.

The proposals, which appear in draft legislation, address concerns about the state’s current two-drug injection method, said John Murphy, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association.

Executions are on hold until February because of challenges to the method, which has resulted in prolonged executions in Ohio and Arizona. Without a viable way of executing prisoners, “we don’t have a death penalty in the state,” Murphy said Thursday.

If enacted, the laws would bring Ohio into line with states like Missouri and Texas, which each use a single, compounded dose of pentobarbital to put inmates to death. The states won’t say where the drug comes from.

Alan Johnson writes, "Proposal would make executions more secretive," for the Columbus Dispatch.

Changes in Ohio’s lethal-injection law advocated by Attorney General Mike DeWine and Ohio prosecutors would create a new layer of secrecy around Ohio executions by shielding drug suppliers, physicians who advise the state, execution team members and others from public disclosure.

DeWine and the prosecutors say the state will in effect have a moratorium on capital punishment until those changes are made because of the difficulty in obtaining drugs used to execute convicted killers.

The legal changes, in draft form, were endorsed last week by the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association.

If enacted, they would allow drug-compounding companies to supply drugs for lethal injections while remaining anonymous to the public, media and defense attorneys,  The Dispatch learned. The proposal would officially label as “confidential state secrets” the names of those who manufacture, compound, import, transport, test and distribute drugs and equipment used in lethal injections.

Also contemplated is a law providing total legal immunity for a physician to advise the state on execution protocol at court hearings and possibly even become a part of the execution team. Another provision would extend anonymity to state prison employees on the execution team.

Earlier coverage of the Ohio Attorney General's secrecy proposal begins at the link.

With this post, I'm adding state secrecy to the category index.

Additional Coverage From Ohio

Time posts, "States Try Secrecy to Protect Lethal Injection Drugmakers," by Josh Sanburn.

States carrying out lethal injections have had to find new ways to execute inmates in recent years. Many have not only experimented with multiple untested drug combinations but have also turned to previously unused pharmacies. And they’ve increasingly tried to block the identity of those drugmakers in order to keep a steady supply of drugs flowing.

A handful of states, including Arizona, Georgia, Missouri and Oklahoma, have passed secrecy laws to protect the anonymity of pharmacies, which fear backlash if it becomes public that they’re providing drugs for executions. Ohio—home to a lethal injection earlier this year that was widely considered botched—may be next.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said this week that it’s unlikely executions in the state would proceed unless the legislature provided anonymity for compounding pharmacies and immunity for physicians involved in executions.

"DeWine: Law change needed before executions resume," by Benjamin Lanka in the Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum.

Ohio will not perform another execution until the state legislature addresses concerns over lethal drugs, Attorney General Mike DeWine said this week.

DeWine, speaking to a group of Gannett Ohio newspaper editors, said because certain companies no longer want their drugs to be sold for execution purposes, the state must change the law to allow the drugs to be formulated anonymously.

"At this point, we're not going to see a death penalty take place, I don't think, until we see some changes in regard to this specific problem," he said Monday.

And:

In response to DeWine's comments, Sen. Edna Brown, D-Toledo, said she hoped the legislature will go beyond trying to fix the state's "extremely flawed execution process."

"I hope the General Assembly will instead take this opportunity to seriously reevaluate why our state continues to pursue capital punishment cases in the first place," she said in a statement.

"AG Says He Doesn’t Expect Executions To Resume As Scheduled In February," is by Karen Kasler for Ohio Public Radio, via WCBE-FM.  There is audio at the link.

Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine said in an interview before a newspaper editorial board that he now doubts that next execution, that of Ronald Phillips on February 11, will happen. His spokesman Dan Tierney says DeWine doesn’t expect executions to resume until some changes are made by lawmakers – first of all, guaranteeing anonymity for pharmacies that would make that single drug the state wants to use. 

“The drugs being used in executions are not being provided to the department. And so one possible source could be compound pharmacies, but allowing the compound pharmacies and the pharmacist that compound the drugs to remain anonymous.”

WVIZ-TV/WCPN-FM's ideastram posts, "DeWine Says He Doesn’t Expect Executions to Resume as Scheduled in February," by Karen Kasler.

At first, advocates against execution were pleased to hear DeWine say he doesn’t expect any more executions for a while. But Kevin Werner with Ohioans to Stop Executions said that excitement faded when they heard the changes that DeWine was talking about.

“That’s a change that we think takes Ohio in the wrong direction,” Wener said. “But certainly we all agree that if the death penalty is going to remain part of Ohio’s law, that it has to be fair, it has to be accurate.”

Earlier coverage from Ohio begins at the link.

Additional Coverage of the Pennsylvania Media Lawsuit

Philly Magazine posts, "3 Reasons We Need to End the Pennsylvania Death Penalty," by Joel Mathis.

First of all, much praise to the Inquirer and City Paper. They’re among the publications joining the ACLU to sue the state to get information on the supplier of Pennsylvania’s lethal injection drugs. Journalism is all about getting information to the public, and sometimes a little extra pressure is needed: It’s good to see that both papers can still find ways to bring that pressure.

It would be better for everybody, though, if the suit weren’t needed.

It would be better for everybody if Pennsylvania didn’t have a death penalty at all.

Let’s skip the moral objections for now, because everybody has a moral stance on the issue — either for or against — and at this point, passionate moral arguments probably aren’t going to move the needle. So let’s talk about good governance. Because the death penalty — in Pennsylvania — and elsewhere, is lousy governance:

AP coverage of the lawsuit by the ACLU of Pennsylvania and media outlets is, "Media seek info on Pa.'s execution drugs," via the Pocono Record.

Four news organizations asked a federal judge in Harrisburg on Thursday to unseal information about where the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections plans to get drugs for use in executing inmates.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia City Paper, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Guardian U.S. filed an emergency motion to intervene in a long-running federal lawsuit that challenges the state's execution procedures.

The newspapers said the Corrections Department has contracted with compounding pharmacies to obtain the drugs, but the court has prevented disclosure of the names of those pharmacies.

The Los Angeles Times posts, "ACLU, others ask Pennsylvania to name makers of death penalty drugs," by James Queally.

The suit also seeks to grant the public access to documents about the suppliers of drugs used in future state executions.

“In light of the recent string of horrifically botched executions, the public is entitled to know how the state obtained the drugs they plan to use to carry out executions here in Pennsylvania,” Reggie Shuford, executive director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the ACLU, said in a statement.

An email sent to the Department of Corrections seeking comment was not immediately returned.

Additional coverage includes:

"Lawsuit seeks source of drugs to be used in Pennsylvania execution," by Daniel Kelley for Reuters.

"News outlets sue to reveal source of Pennsylvania’s lethal injection drugs," by Mark Berman at the Washington Post.

Mother Jones posts, "News Organizations Battle Pennsylvania Over Secret Source of Its Execution Drugs," by Mariah Blake.

"Rights group challenges Pennsylvania's execution protocol," at Al Jazeera America.

"ACLU, The Guardian and Pennsylvania papers file motion to unseal lethal injection records," by Kristen Hare for Poynter Media Wire.

The Filing in Chester v. Wetzel is at the link.

Earlier coverage from Pennsylvania begins at the link.  You can also jump to news of the media lawsuit.

Oklahoma Attorney General Speaks Out on LI Drugs

The Tulsa World reports, "Pruitt says execution drug shortage a continuing problem," by Randy Krehbiel.

“Anti-death penalty zealots” are causing shortages of execution drugs and contributing to the uncertainty marking lethal injection, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said Thursday.

Speaking to the Sapulpa Chamber of Commerce, Pruitt said “issues with administration” of a three-drug combination, and not the drugs themselves, appear to have been the reason that murderer Clayton Lockett’s death took much longer — about 43 minutes — than expected.

And:

Pruitt emphasized the difficulty in obtaining drugs for lethal injection and said the combination previously used by Oklahoma had become impossible to obtain.

Earlier coverage from Oklahoma begins at the link.

ACLU, Journalists Sue Pennsylvania Over LI Drug Secrecy

The Filing in Chester v. Wetzel is at the link.

The Guardian posts, "ACLU challenges Pennsylvania over execution drugs secrecy in federal court," by Ed Pilkington.

The secrecy imposed on the identity of the compounding pharmacy that supplied lethal drugs to Pennsylvania for use in executions is challenged today in an emergency legal motion lodged with a federal court.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania has asked judge Yvette Kane of the US district court in Harrisburg to unseal a set of legal documents that contain hidden details about the source of the state’s lethal injection drugs. In tune with many other death penalty states, Pennsylvania has shrouded its execution procedure in secrecy in the hope of keeping supply routes to the medicines open in the face of a tight international boycott led by the European Commission.

The next execution scheduled in the state is on 22 September, when convicted murderer, Hubert Michael, 57, is set to die by an injection of three separate lethal drugs. The execution is currently on hold awaiting the decision of the 3rd circuit court of appeals, but the stay could be lifted at any time which would pave the way for the first judicial killing in Pennsylvania for 15 years.

The condemned man, who pleaded guilty to raping and murdering a 16-year-old girl, Trista Eng, has been on death row for two decades and has exhausted almost all his legal options. He would be the first death row inmate in Pennsylvania to be put to death since 1999.

The ACLU’s action has been brought on behalf of the Guardian and three state newspapers – the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Philadelphia City Paper.

"City Paper sues to disclose supplier of lethal-injection drug," is by Daniel Denvir for City Paper Philadelphia.

Philadelphia City Paper joined three other newspapers today in asking a federal judge to unseal court records identifying the supplier of the drugs it will use in the planned lethal injection execution of Hubert Michael, Jr. which could take place as soon as September 22.

The motion was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania on behalf of City Paper, the Guardian US, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and seeks to intervene in a class action lawsuit filed by death row inmates against the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, Chester v. Wetzel, which contends that the state's lethal injection procedure is unconstitutional because it carries the risk of extreme pain and suffering.

In 2012, U.S. Magistrate Judge Martin C. Carlson ordered the DOC to provide plaintiffs with the identity of the supplier of drugs to be used in lethal injections but ordered that all such information be kept confidential.

The motion filed today by the ACLU contends that the identity of the supplier has been revealed in numerous confidential filings, including documents concerning a Food and Drug Administration investigation related to entities involved in the state's lethal injection supply chain. It is impossible, the motion avers, to evaluate the state's death penalty protocol without examining the efficacy of the drugs—which cannot be done without knowing the identity of the supplier. The death row inmates claim that the pentobarbital that the state plans to use for executions will fail to anesthetize the inmate as ostensibly intended.

"Attorney seeks injunction for York County man facing drug execution," is by Paula Reed Ward in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Hubert Michael, 58, is scheduled to be executed Sept. 22 for the 1993 kidnapping and murder of a 16-year-old York County girl.

Gov. Tom Corbett issued a death warrant for Michael in July. That is currently stayed by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal pending a decision for reargument on an issue related to his case. But according to a motion filed on Michael's behalf Tuesday, there is no way to know whether the stay will continue past the date set for execution.

“In light of the recent string of horrifically botched executions, the public is entitled to know how the state obtained the drugs it plans to use to carry out executions here in Pennsylvania,” said Reggie Shuford, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania.

On Tuesday, an attorney for Michael asked Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court for a preliminary injunction halting the execution, arguing that the state Department of Corrections is not following state law regarding the drug cocktail required to complete the lethal injection.

The 1990 law required the first drug to be given in the combination to be an ultra-short-acting barbiturate. But there no longer are any domestic suppliers of that drug, and the state DOC in 2012 wrote a new protocol, changing the drug cocktail.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports, "Court asked to ID secret supplier of Pa.’s execution drugs," by Joseph A. Gambardello.

Four news organizations, including The Inquirer, filed a motion in federal court Thursday seeking the name of the firm contracted to provide the drugs Pennsylvania would use in an execution by lethal injection scheduled for this month.

The state has said the compounding pharmacy it contracted to supply the drugs would likely refuse to do so if its name was made public, according to the court papers filed in Harrisburg.

In their motion, The Inquirer, Guardian US, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Philadelphia City Paper said recent botched executions in other states "have greatly increased the public's interest in lethal injection executions."

U.S. District Court Judge Yvette Kane ordered the company's name sealed at the state's request. The issue emerged in conjunction with an attempt by the American Civil Liberties Union to win a stay of execution for Hubert Lester Michael Jr.

Earlier coverage from Pennsylvania begins at the link.

5th Circuit Rejects LI Challenge

The Guardian posts, "Texas execution on course despite claims that drug supply expired," is by Tom Dart.

Amid claims that its drug supply has expired, Texas is set to execute its first prisoner since the state’s attorney general decided that it does not have to reveal the source of its lethal injection drugs.

Citing security concerns for pharmacies, Greg Abbott – the Republican candidate for governor in this November’s election – reversed course in May after previously compelling the Texas department of criminal justice to disclose details about its drug suppliers.

But lawyers for Willie Trottie, who is scheduled to be put to death on Wednesday at 6pm CT unless last-minute legal appeals succeed, have raised questions about whether Texas’s supply is still current and claim that recent botched executions have added to doubts about the efficacy and legality of the lethal injection process in general.

"Appeals court rejects inmate's lawsuit over expired execution drugs," is from Houston television station KTRK-TV.

The lawsuit, rejected by a federal judge in Houston and before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, was merely another attempt to force Texas prison officials to reveal its drug provider, they said. State lawyers argued the pentobarbital planned for Trottie was effective through the end of this month.

Texas, like several other states with capital punishment, has addressed the refusal by mainstream drug companies to sell drugs for executions by turning to compounding pharmacies, which operate under less stringent supervision. Also like some other death penalty states, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has refused to identify its supplier, a practice the courts so far have upheld.

Maurie Levin, the lead attorney for the drug lawsuit, said the pentobarbital for Trottie would come from a supply Texas obtained earlier this year and that scientific literature on compounded drugs suggests they lose effectiveness after a week or a month depending on factors like storage and sterility.

"All they're saying is: Take our word for it - Sept. 30," Levin said, calling Texas prison officials "untrustworthy."

Additional coverage includes:

"Willie Tyrone Trottie Faces Execution," by Terri Langford and Bobby Blanchard for the tExas Tribune.

"A look at the execution scheduled in Texas," by Michael Graczyk of AP, via the San Antonio Express-News.

Houston's KPFT-FM will host Execution Watch on the web and its HD radio broadcast signal beginning at 6:00 p.m. (CDT), this evening.

Earlier coverage from Texas begins at the link.

Texas LI Drugs - Has the Stock Expired?

The filing in Trottie v. Livingston is available in Adobe .pdf format.

The Texas Tribune posts, "Death Row Appeal Alleges Execution Drugs Have Expired," by Terri Langford.

Attorneys for death row inmate Willie Trottie, who is scheduled for execution this week, say the lethal injection drugs that will be used on him have expired, according to an appeal filed early Tuesday in the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice insists the drug it uses, pentobarbital, has not expired.

And:

The eleventh-hour debate is detailed in an appeal filed on Trottie's behalf by attorney Maurie Levin of Philadelphia. She argues that even though TDCJ states that the drugs will not expire until the end of the month, the agency's claim "is not supported by a shred of evidence, expert or otherwise."

"There is a substantial risk that the use of expired drugs will subject Mr. Trottie to tortuous pain," she writes.

Jason Clark, a TDCJ spokesman, said the drug to be used, pentobarbital, "is not expired and has a use-by date of September 2014."

"Lawsuit argues Texas to use expired execution drug," is AP coverage by Michael Graczyk, via the Austin American-Statesman.

State lawyers argue the pentobarbital planned Wednesday evening for 45-year-old Willie Trottie is good through the end of this month and the lawsuit is merely another attempt to force the state to reveal its drug provider.

The suit was at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday after a federal judge in Houston rejected it.

Texas, like several other states, has turned to unidentified compounding pharmacies to purchase execution drugs. Courts previously have upheld the secrecy.

"Appeal for Houston killer says lethal drug has passed expiration date," is by Allan Turner of the Houston Chronicle.

In Tuesday's filing, Houston lawyer Jonathan Ross and Philadelphia lawyer Maurie Levin argue that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's "purchases (actual and attempted) of lethal injection drugs have been riddled with deceptive and questionable practices and communications."

In response to queries from Trottie's lawyers, Tuesday's petition says, the state prison system revealed that the pentobarbital to be used Wednesday will not expire until Sept. 30. The dose comes from the same batch as that used in April 3 and April 16 executions. It was tested for potency on March 17.

That claim, Trottie's lawyers contend, "is not supported by a shred of evidence, expert or otherwise, or the relevant science, which understands that expiriation dates of compounded chemicals is not a fixed science, is dependent on factors including the quality and sterility of the original ingredients, the proficiency of the compounders and the testing laboratory and storage conditions."

The federal appeal also challenges the reliability of the laboratory which tested the drug for potency, noting that it came under U.S. Federal Drug Administration scrutiny for operational shortcomings in 2013.

Earlier coverage from Texas begins at the link.

Editorial, Commentary, News From Missouri

Today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch publishes the editorial, "Lies and secrets in administering the ultimate punishment."  It's a must-read.

Thanks to diligent reporting by Chris McDaniel of St. Louis Public Radio, we now know that Missouri uses two drugs in its “single-drug” execution process. Inmates get an intravenous dosage of the sedative midazolam after they’re taken to the death chamber at the Bonne Terre prison. They usually get the sedative a half-hour or so before the execution time at 12:01 a.m. on the date specified by the Supreme Court.

Two questions then: Does this mean Missouri is jump-starting its executions before the time set by the court? And why did Corrections Director George Lombardi specifically deny in February that midazolam is used as part of the execution process?

Either Mr. Lombardi didn’t know what midazolam was or he lied about it. Either way it doesn’t offer much confidence in the man charged with making sure that the ultimate punishment is administered according to law. Sadly, it’s part of a pattern at the Department of Corrections.

In part because of all the challenges made under the Ringo lawsuit, the state has become very furtive in the way it executes people — and the way it intends to execute Earl Ringo.

 "'Thorough justice' in execution process," is an OpEd by Joan Bray, also in today's Post-Dispatch.  Bray is a former member of the Missouri Legislature.  Here's the beginning:

Speaking in the aftermath of events in Ferguson, Gov. Jay Nixon stated: “To get justice it has to be transparent justice, it has to be thorough justice.”

He was right. His assertion should apply in all cases, including, maybe even especially, in the administration of the death penalty.

Missourians, as well as the men to be executed and their families, have an absolute right to know the truth about the execution process. Instead, Missouri’s Department of Corrections has misled the public and obstructed access to the truth. Appointed by the governor and represented by the attorney general, these public officials must be held accountable for transparent, thorough justice.

The Springfield News-Leader publishes, "Racial bias influences Missouri executions," by Cheryl Clay.  She is the President of the Springfield NAACP chapter.

For the past few weeks, citizens of the world have been questioning the equality of the criminal justice system in Ferguson. And yet, very few seem to be asking if racial bias affects how the most drastic, irreversible act of the law – executions – are carried out in Missouri, the state ranked fifth in executions since they were reinstated in1976.

On September 10, Earl Ringo is scheduled to be the fourth black man executed in Missouri this year. Mr. Ringo was sentenced to death as a result the robbery of a restaurant after-hours that resulted in the deaths of two employees. The one African-American from the Cape Girardeau county jury pool who was actually questioned about her qualifications to serve on Mr. Ringo's jury was struck for cause at the request of the Prosecuting Attorney and under dubious circumstances. Mr. Ringo was thus tried by an all-white jury in front of a white judge by a white Prosecuting Attorney. Both of the people who died on the night of the offenses were white.

The handing down of the death penalty in America is clearly affected by the color the defendant's skin. African Americans have always been, and continue to be, disproportionately put to death at the hands of the American "justice" system. Currently African Americans account for 42% of the nation's death row population, even though they make up only 13% of the nation's civilian population.

"Missouri, Texas plan executions Wednesday,"is by Jim Salter and Michael Graczyk of Associated Press.  It's also available from USA Today.

Two of the nation's most active death penalty states are planning executions Wednesday, even as attorneys for the condemned men try to save them.

Earl Ringo Jr. is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. for killing two people during a robbery at a Columbia, Missouri, restaurant in 1998. Hours later, Texas plans to execute Willie Trottie for fatally shooting his common-law wife and her brother in Houston in 1993.

The executions would be the eighth this year in both states. Florida also has performed seven executions in 2014. All other states have a combined six executions.

"Missouri Fights Lethal Injection Suit on Eve of Earl Ringo Execution," is by Tracy Connor of NBC News.

While Texas remains the leading capital-punishment state in America — 16 murderers were put to death in the state last year — Missouri could break its own state record for executions by January. If his appeals fail, Ringo will be the eighth prisoner to enter the death chamber in 2014, the most in 15 years.

State officials have shown no inclination to slow the pace. In fact, Attorney General Chris Koster suggested this year that the prison system should make its own lethal injections so it doesn't have to rely on suppliers that demand anonymity.

Ringo is a plaintiff in the suit the Eighth Circuit will hear en banc, meaning all the judges will weigh in as opposed to a select few. His lawyer said it was not clear if that would help him win a temporary reprieve, noting that courts have declined to issue 11th hour delays for most other inmates involved in the case.

Earlier coverage from Missouri and Texas, at the links.

New Disclosures & Questions in Missouri

St. Louis Public Radio posts, "Missouri Swore It Wouldn’t Use A Controversial Execution Drug. It Did."  It's by Chris McDaniel.  There are documents, audio, and infographics at the link.  Here's teh beginning of this detailed must-read:

In Ohio, the execution took 26 minutes, as the inmate gasped and snorted. In Oklahoma, it took 43 minutes until a conscious inmate died of what the state said was a heart attack. In Arizona, it took nearly two hours, with the inmate "gulping like a fish on land."

The three worst botched executions this year had at least one thing in common: The states all used a drug called Midazolam to sedate the inmate, with varying levels of success.

Botched executions in other states led to questions in Missouri, a state as secretive as the others. Top Missouri officials were asked about the state's methods. They defended their own protocol each time, pointing out that Missouri doesn’t use the same drugs as those other states.

But an investigation by St. Louis Public Radio shows that wasn't entirely true.

According to documents we obtained, Missouri has used Midazolam in every execution since November of last year. In all nine executions since then, Missouri's execution team has injected the condemned with significant amounts of the sedative.

This is occurring in spite of the fact that Missouri's top corrections officials testified Midazolam would never be used in a Missouri execution.

"ACLU Demands Info on Execution Witnesses," is by Joe Harris for Courthouse News Service.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed another lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Corrections, seeking information on state-selected execution witnesses.

The ACLU and two people sued the Missouri DOC on Tuesday in Cole County Court. It is the sixth lawsuit ACLU has filed against the Missouri DOC, involving the state's execution protocol.

"Troubled by the secrecy surrounding Missouri's execution process and Missouri's use of execution witnesses to vouch for its narrative that those killed by the state do not suffer, plaintiffs began investigating the process by which such witnesses are selected," the complaint states.

The ACLU says it submitted a written request for public records on May 2 to the Missouri DOC's Custodian of Records. It sought records identifying invitees of the DOC to witness scheduled executions in the past 12 months; the records of the responses from those invitees; all records of requests by the public or the media to witness executions in the past 12 months; all records of consideration of those requests; and all records of actual witnesses to executions in the past 12 months.

"So far, all we have received are a handful of heavily censored documents," said ACLU legal director for Missouri Tony Rothert said in a statement.

Earlier coverage from Missouri begins at the link.

Nebraska AG Speaks Out

"Bruning confident state can restore death penalty," is by Grant Schulte of Associated Press, via the Omaha World-Herald.  It's also available from the Lincoln Journal Star.  Here's an extended excerpt from the beginning of this lengthy article:

Nebraska's attorney general said the state's corrections department has been too busy dealing with myriad problems to focus on resolving drug shortages that have halted executions in the state, which hasn't carried out the death penalty in 17 years.

Attorney General Jon Bruning said he's confident Nebraska will resume executions, but he thinks it will take a while before officials can work out a new approach using different drugs or a new supplier.

"I have a high degree of confidence that we'll have a workable death penalty in the future," said Bruning, who is leaving office in January. "Whether that's a year or two years from now, I can't say. But in the near future, there's no reason that Nebraska shouldn't have a functional death penalty."

Nebraska lost its only approved method to carry out executions when its supply of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic required under the department's rules, expired in December. The drug is no longer produced in the United States, and European Union countries are prohibited from selling the drug for use in capital punishment.

Nebraska's last execution was the electrocution of Robert E. Williams, for triple homicide, in 1997.

Of the 33 Nebraska inmates sentenced to death since 1973, three have been executed and 11 are on death row. One former inmate, Jeremy Sheets, was released in 2001 after his conviction was thrown out and prosecutors declined to retry him. The others have had their sentences overturned by court rulings, or died of suicide or natural causes.

Earlier coverage from Nebraska begins at the link.

More on Texas LI Drugs

"Execution drug cost quadruples for Texas prisons," is the AP report filed by Michael Graczyk, via the Austin American-Statesman.

Texas is paying four times more for its execution drugs from a new supplier, putting it in line with a local consumer rate but well below the cost in at least one other death penalty state.

The prison agency in the nation's busiest death penalty state paid $13,500 for its most recent batch of pentobarbital at a cost of $1,500 per vial, compared to $350 per dose spent last year, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press under an open records request.

The extra cost — a minuscule part of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's $3 billion annual budget — comes after the state's previous supplier refused to provide more of the powerful sedative last year, claiming it had become a target of execution opponents. Prison officials have since found a new compound pharmacy for pentobarbital, and have waged a successful legal battle to keep the business' name secret.

Backlash from capital punishment adversaries has curtailed the number of mainstream drug companies willing to provide lethal chemical doses to states. But it's not clear whether the increased cost is tied to that. Industry groups and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration say they do not track prices for the drug and could not speculate on what factors might have driven the cost up for Texas.

And:

The cost is a bargain compared to Missouri, which also uses pentobarbital for executions. Records earlier this year showed state officials paid as much as $8,000 per dose.

At least 10 inmates have execution dates in the coming months, including two in September, which means Texas' latest batch of pentobarbital is set to run out by the end of the year. The agency has confirmed it will attempt to purchase more drugs, but Clark would not address whether the agency expects costs to rise further or whether it will use the same supplier.

Earlier coverage of Texas lethal injection issues begins at the link.

The Continued Use of Pentobarbital

"2 states carry on with executions using sedative," is by Jim Salter of AP, via the Beaumont Enterprise.  It's also available from the St. Louis Tribune.  Here are excerpts from this lengthy article:

Despite a shortage of lethal-injection drugs, two of the nation's most active death penalty states have quietly carried on with executions by turning to pentobarbital, a powerful sedative that generally puts inmates to death swiftly and without complications.

Missouri and Texas have avoided the prolonged executions seen in other states where authorities are struggling to find a reliable chemical combination. The drug's apparent effectiveness raises questions about why it has not been more widely adopted.

And:

But in recent years, major drugmakers, many of them in Europe, stopped selling pharmaceuticals for use in executions, citing ethical concerns. By 2011, with sodium thiopental no longer available, Ohio became the first state to use pentobarbital in a single-drug execution.

Soon, the Danish maker of pentobarbital, Lundbeck Inc., initiated efforts to keep it out of the hands of corrections departments. That led Ohio and some other states that initially used the drug to abandon it.

Missouri and Texas have turned to compounding pharmacies to make versions of pentobarbital. But like most states, they refuse to name their drug suppliers, creating a shroud of secrecy that has prompted lawsuits.

Related posts are in the lethal injection category index.

Texas Tribune Examines Texas LI Drugs

The Texas Tribune posts, "Timeline: A History of Lethal Drug Use in Texas," by Terri Langford, Alex Duner and Jessica Hamel.  There are infographics and a video at the link.

For nearly 30 years, Texas used the same three-drug lethal injection cocktail to execute death row inmates: sodium thiopental, an anesthetic, followed by pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant, and then potassium chloride, which brings about cardiac arrest. 

Drug manufacturers in the U.S. and abroad began cutting off supplies in 2011, refusing to allow their use in executions. The dwindling supply set in motion a national scramble among death penalty states, including Texas, to find drugs that could be used to administer the ultimate punishment. 

Relying on news stories and TDCJ documents provided to death row inmates' attorneys, The Texas Tribune compiled a timeline of TDCJ’s drug purchases and its use of execution drugs since 2011.

Earlier coverage of Texas lethal injection issues begins at the link.

Florida, Georgia Executions Scheduled This Week

Today's Lakeland Ledger reports, "Florida High Court Upholds Execution of Eddie Wayne Davis for Murder of Lakeland Girl," by Suzie Schottelkotte.

The Florida Supreme Court denied an appeal Monday seeking to halt the execution of condemned killer Eddie Wayne Davis.

Davis is scheduled to die Thursday for the 1994 murder of 11-year-old Kimberly Ann Waters in Lakeland.

The state's high court upheld last week's ruling by Circuit Judge Donald Jacobsen, who rejected Davis' argument that his possible blood disorder, called porphyria, may interact with the drugs used in lethal injection and cause him extreme pain.

"3 days before execution, Waldrip appeal denied," is by Rhonda Cook for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Three days before his scheduled execution, condemned murderer Tommy Lee Waldrip lost an appeal filed in Fulton Superior Court while a federal judge is still considering the killer’s challenge that the state law that keeps secret information about the lethal injection drug and the identities of those involved with securing it.

Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled late Monday the issues Waldrip raised in his appeal had already been decided by state and federal courts ruling in the case of another Death Row inmate — Marcus Wellons, who was executed June 17.

Waldrip had said without knowing the identity of the pharmacist who made a special batch of pentobarbital for his execution set for 7 p.m. Thursday or identity of the doctor who prescribed it, there was no way to verify the drug’s safety. That could put him at risk of a painful death, which would violate his Eighth Amendment protection from cruel and unusual punishment, his lawyers said.

U.S. District Judge William O’Kelley heard a similar argument from Waldrip’s lawyers Monday morning. O’Kelley had not ruled by late Monday afternoon.

Earlier coverage from Florida and Georgia, at the links.  Related posts are in the execution date category index.

Lethal Injection and Pharmacists

"Death penalty caught in web of pharmacy ethics," is the OpEd by Kelsey Kauffman for the South Bend Tribune of Indiana.

In any case, Indiana's experiment will be short-lived. Par Pharmaceutical has now joined the embargo on use of its products in executions. Eventually, Indiana will be forced to take the second option: to search for a "compounding" pharmacist who will create his own deadly brew that will, however painfully or slowly, cause the death of the recipient.

Only a handful of pharmacists in the entire nation have entered into such a bargain and all have insisted that it be done "on the down low." In agreeing to kill the recipients of their drugs, these pharmacists violate all the key tenets of the pharmacists' own Code of Ethics. The code states unequivocally that the primary obligation of a pharmacist is to individual patients, that concern for the well-being of the patient be at the center of professional practice, and that the pharmacist promote the right of the drug recipient to self-determination and participation in decisions about his or her own health.

Earlier news of pharmacists begins at the link.  Related posts are in the compounding pharmacy category index.

The Return to Executions

"Concerns aside, executions persist in some states," is the AP report by Jim Salter, with input from AP writers in other states.  It's via the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.

Austin Sarat, professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, said there has been a regional divide when it comes to how quickly states are returning to the business of putting prisoners to death.

“I think what you’re going to see is kind of a division where some areas, some states, predominantly in the South, are going to dig in their heels,” Sarat said. “Other states are going to proceed more cautiously and impose, if not an official moratorium, more of a de facto moratorium until things get sorted out.”

The executions in Georgia and Missouri were the first since April 29, when Oklahoma prison officials halted the process because drugs weren’t being administered properly into the veins of inmate Clayton Lockett. He died of a heart attack 43 minutes after the process began.

Lawyers for death row inmates have cited concerns that what happened in Oklahoma could be repeated, and they’ve challenged the secretive ways many states obtain lethal injection drugs from loosely regulated compounding pharmacies.

AP also distributes this sidebar, "A glance at how the Supreme Court handles last-minute appeals by inmates about to be executed," by Mark Sherman.  It's via the Prince George Citizen.

Supreme Court decisions to allow inmates to be put to death or to grant a rare reprieve often come at the last minute, and sometimes after the appointed hour of execution has come and gone.

CNN posts, "Executions resume amid lingering questions over drugs, methods," by Michael Pearson. There is video at the link.

After a seven-week lull following the botched execution of an Oklahoma man, executions resumed in the United States this week with three men put to death over 24 hours -- one in Missouri, one in Georgia and one in Florida.

Three more are scheduled to die by lethal injection in the next five weeks, and more than 3,000 men and women await execution in the 32 states where it's currently legal and in three others where it's no longer used for new crimes but still on the books for existing convictions.

But major legal and technical considerations will continue to surround the issue for the foreseeable future. Here's an update on the most important issues.

Earlier coverage of this week's executions begins at the link.

News Coverage of the Georgia & Missouri Executions

"This is a civilized society? Three face possible executions this week," is Scott Martelle's post at the Los Angeles Times Opinion LA blog.

It is a flawed, ineffective and barbaric system. And the state of its nature is compounded now by secrecy and sketchy legal tactics by the authorities charged with carrying out our public business. All in the name of revenge.

"Marcus Wellons executed," is by Rhonda Cook and Bill Rankin at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Wellons, 58, was pronounced dead at 11:56 p.m. after his final appeals were denied by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Wellons apologized to the family of India Roberts the teenager he was convicted of killing and said, “I ask and hope they will find peace in my death.”

He thanked his family and friends for their love and prayers and added, “I’m going home to be with Jesus.”

Wellons hummed as prayer was being said and as the warden read the death warrant. Otherwise there was little movement visible as he lay on the gurney. He was seen to exhale a couple of times before his body seemed to quiver and then there was no more movement.

Three minutes before Wellons was declared dead a nurse standing to his left was seen asking one of the corrections officers if he was ok, just before the officer fainted.

And:

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Atlanta unanimously declined to stop Wellons’ execution. The court said Wellons failed to clear a legal threshold by showing that the lethal-injection protocol to be used in his execution created a “demonstrated risk of severe pain that is substantial when compared to the known alternatives.”

But Judge Charles Wilson, writing separately, expressed concern over the state’s secrecy law. How could Wellons, the judge asked, show that he faced a risk of needless pain and suffering “when the state has passed a law prohibiting him from learning about the compound it plans to use to execute him?”

Wilson questioned the need to keep information about the lethal-injection process concealed from the public and the courts, “especially given the recent much-publicized botched execution in Oklahoma.”

“Unless judges have information about the specific nature of a method of execution,” Wilson wrote, “we cannot fulfill our constitutional role of determining whether a state’s method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment before it becomes too late.”

The New York Times reports, "Georgia Inmate Is Put to Death in First U.S. Execution Since Botched Procedure," by Alan Blinder.

Although the state acknowledged that it used a substantial dose of a single drug — pentobarbital, a barbiturate — from a compounding pharmacy to execute Mr. Wellons, many of the procedures surrounding his death were kept secret. A state law that took effect last summer and was upheld in May by the State Supreme Court allowed the authorities in Georgia to withhold information about the people and companies involved in executions.

That secrecy was a subject of one of Mr. Wellons’s many appeals in the federal and state courts, which continued well into Tuesday. Defense lawyers argued that the confidentiality exposed Mr. Wellons to the threat of a cruel and unusual punishment because they could not evaluate the qualifications of members of the execution team or the safety record of the compounding pharmacy.

"Georgia, Missouri execute convicted killers; first since botched lethal injection," by Matt Pearce, Ryan Parker for the Los Angeles Times.

Wellons and Winfield both had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to examine the secrecy laws in their states as a reason to stay their executions because of the undisclosed drug cocktails that would be used to kill them.

Secrecy laws like Georgia's and Missouri's have come under especially heavy scrutiny from death penalty opponents after Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett writhed and groaned before his death in April.

"Weeks after botched Oklahoma execution, multiple executions scheduled for 24-hour window," by Mark Berman in the Washington Post.

It has been seven weeks since an inmate was executed in the United States. The last time it happened was on April 29, a botched execution in Oklahoma that drew considerable criticism and cast a bright spotlight on the issues surrounding capital punishment as it currently exists in this country.

Since that incident, other executions were halted, some with just hours to spare. There are currently four executions scheduled during a 24-hour period from Tuesday night to Wednesday night, though it’s unclear how many of these will actually occur. (At least one is likely to be stayed, while the Supreme Court on Tuesday night denied requests to stay two of the other executions.) Still, on Tuesday night, the U.S. saw its first execution in nearly two months.

"Georgia and Missouri carry out first US executions since Oklahoma incident," is the updated AP report, via the Guardian.

Nine executions nationwide have been stayed or postponed since late April, when Oklahoma prison officials halted the execution of Clayton Lockett after noting that the lethal injection drugs weren't being administered into his vein properly. Lockett's punishment was halted and he died of a heart attack several minutes later.

"I think after Clayton Lockett's execution, everyone is going to be watching very closely," Fordham University School of Law professor Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert, said of this week's executions.

Georgia, Missouri and Florida all refuse to say where they obtain their drugs, or if they are tested.

Lawyers for Wellons and Winfield had challenged the secretive process used by some states to obtain lethal injection drugs from unidentified, loosely regulated compounding pharmacies.

Georgia and Missouri both use the single drug pentobarbital, a sedative. Florida uses a three-drug combination of midazolam hydrochloride, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

Additional coverage includes:

"Georgia, Missouri inmates put to death, first since botched Oklahoma execution," by Reuters, via the Chicago Tribune.

"Georgia And Missouri Carry Out First Executions Since The Botched Lethal Injection," by AFP, via Business Insider.

The Wall Street Journal posts, "States Carry Out First Executions Since Botched Oklahoma Case," by Cameron McWhirter and Ashby Jones.

"US executions continue despite concerns over secretive drugs," by Wilson Dizard for Al Jazeera America.

"Georgia execution is first since botched Oklahoma procedure," by Ed Payne and Ralph Ellis for CNN.

The ABA Journal posts, "Prison official faints during execution; sentence was upheld despite jurors’ gag gifts, drug secrecy," by Debra Cassens Weiss.

Earlier coverage from Florida, Georgia, and Missouri, at the links.

Georgia Executes Marcus Wellons

"GEORGIA EXECUTION 1ST SINCE BOTCHED INJECTION," is the initial AP report filed by Kate Brumback.

A Georgia inmate convicted of rape and murder has become the first person to be executed in the U.S. since the botched lethal injection of a prisoner in Oklahoma in April.

Fifty-nine-year-old Marcus Wellons was executed by injection Tuesday night after last-minute appeals were denied. A corrections spokesman says he was pronounced dead at 11:56 p.m., more than an hour after the procedure began. The execution seemed to go smoothly with no noticeable complications.

"Marcus Wellons has been executed," is by Rhonda Cook and Bill Rankin at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Marcus Wellons has been executed. Return for details.

It was the 21st execution in an American death penalty state this year; Georgia's first execution since last year.  There have been a total of 1,380 post-Furman executions since 1977.  Georgia has carried out 54 of those executions since 1983.

Earlier coverage of Marcus Wellons case begins at the link.

Supreme Court Denies Stay of Execution in Georgia

"High Court denies stay of execution for Wellons," is the breaking news by Rhonda Cook and Bill Rankin at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The Supreme Court has refused to grant a last-minute reprieve to a Georgia death row inmate who would be the first person executed in the United States since a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma seven weeks ago.

 "HIGH COURT REFUSES TO BLOCK EXECUTION IN GEORGIA," is the AP report.

The Supreme Court has refused to grant a last-minute reprieve to a Georgia death row inmate who would be the first person executed in the United States since a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma seven weeks ago.

Earlier coverage of Marcus Wellons case begins at the link.

An Update From Georgia

"Wellons files federal appeal to delay execution for more drug research," is by Rhonda Cook for the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Court of Appeals to stop his execution scheduled for tonight to give him time to gather “relevant information” to evaluate the quality of the compounded sedative that is to be used to put him to death.

In a filing with the federal appeals court Tuesday, Wellons’ attorneys said the only way to be sure that the compounded pentobarbitol made specifically for Wellons is safe is to know who made it and their credentials. Otherwise, the appeal said, Wellons is at risk of a painful death.

“The Eighth Amendment protects Mr. Wellons from cruel and unusual punishment,” the appeal said. “But it is a hollow right unless it can be enforced prospectively.”

The emergency appeal to the Eleventh Circuit can be accessed at the link.  The appeal states:

“The Eighth Amendment protects Mr. Wellons from cruel and unusual punishment. That is uncontroversial. But it is a hollow right unless it can be enforced prospectively. Few would contest that Clayton Lockett’s Eighth Amendment rights were violated by Oklahoma’s botched execution, but there is certainly no redress available to him now. If Mr. Wellons can be deprived of the information necessary to determine whether Appellees’ method of execution presents “a substantial risk of significant harm,” Baze, then his Eighth Amendment rights have been nullified. The same is true of his First Amendment rights, if Appellees are allowed to conceal from him – and the public, and this Court – how they will carry out the gravest duty entrusted to them…

‘…Accordingly, Appellees’ actions to shield these critical aspects of how they intend to carry out judicial executions harms not only Mr. Wellons. It deprives the Appellees themselves of the feedback that could help them avoid a botched execution – an opportunity that those who executed Clayton Lockett would no doubt welcome, in retrospect. More critically, it attempts to prevent this Court from fulfilling its central mandate: to protect the Constitution. Further, it places the courts in the position of deciding issues about which Appellees have intentionally kept them uninformed.”

Earlier coverage from Georgia begins at the link.

The Latest From Georgia

The New York Times reports, "U.S. Judge Denies Stay of Execution in Georgia," by Richard Fausset.

A federal judge on Monday rejected a Georgia inmate’s argument that his execution, scheduled for Tuesday evening, should be stayed because the state had refused to disclose details about the drug to be used in his lethal injection.

Marcus Wellons, 58, was sentenced to death in the 1989 rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl. Absent a court order issuing a reprieve, he will be the first person executed in the United States since the botched lethal injection in Oklahoma of Clayton D. Lockett on April 29.

The execution of Mr. Lockett, who writhed in apparent agony when he was supposed to be unconscious, raised new concerns about states’ lethal injection protocols, the drugs used and new laws in some states, including Oklahoma and Georgia, that keep details about those drugs secret.

"Federal judge won’t stop Wellons’ execution," is by Rhonda Cook for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A federal judge and the state Board of Pardons and Paroles both rejected condemned murderer Marcus Wellons’ requests for clemency Monday in the death sentence for a 1989 murder of a Cobb County teenage girl.

Lawyers had argued before U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten that Wellons’ constitutional protections from cruel and unusual punishment could be violated if there was a problem with the compounded lethal injection drug produced by an unidentified pharmacist. They said here was no way to know in advance the quality of the drugs made specifically for his execution or the experience of the pharmacist who made the sedative.

And:

If Wellons is executed, he will be the first person Georgia has put to death using a massive dose of the sedative pentobarbital. This also will be the first time an execution is carried out since Georgia law made the source of lethal injection drugs a state secret.

MSNBC posts, "The death penalty rises again in Georgia," by Meredith Clark.

Besides being the first inmate executed since Lockett’s death brought capital punishment into the spotlight, Wellons will be the first inmate in Georgia to be executed using compounded drugs and the first since it became legal for officials to keep information about execution drugs secret from the public.

Earlier coverage from Georgia begins with the preceding post.

Tuesday

I'm going to start with two news articles giving an overview of execution dates.  Both are excellent recaps of where we stand, today. Next will be individual posts from Georgia and Missouri.

"3 inmates set to die; previous execution botched," is Jim Salter's AP filing, via the Cape Code Times.  Here's the beginning:

There have been no U.S. executions in the seven weeks since an Oklahoma inmate died of a heart attack following a botched lethal injection. That soon could change, with three convicted killers scheduled to die in the span of about 24 hours.

All three states planning lethal injections this week — Florida, Georgia and Missouri — refuse to say where they get their drugs, or if they are tested. Lawyers for the condemned inmates have challenged the secretive process used by some states to obtain lethal injection drugs from unnamed, loosely regulated compounding pharmacies.

Nine executions nationwide have been stayed or postponed since late April, when Clayton Lockett's vein collapsed just as the drug began flowing into his arm in Oklahoma's death chamber. Lockett's punishment was halted, but despite efforts to save him, he died of a heart attack.

"I think after Clayton Lockett's execution everyone is going to be watching very closely," Fordham University School of Law professor Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert, said of this week's executions. "The scrutiny is going to be even closer."

Marcus Wellons is set to die Tuesday night in Georgia, followed six hours later by John Winfield, who faces execution at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday in Missouri. John Ruthell Henry's execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday in Florida.

The Guardian posts, "Death row inmates face execution in three states amid drug controversy," is by Ed Pilkington.

The sudden flurry of execution activity following a recent lull means that both advocates of the death penalty and opponents will be on high alert this week. Any missteps on a level with the grim scenes in Oklahoma could have significant ramifications for the death sentence in America.

“If anything even close to Oklahoma happens again, the death penalty itself could be at issue,” Dieter said.

Georgia has a particularly troubled record in terms of its procurement of lethal drugs to execute prisoners. When supplies of its previous drug of choice, sodium thiopental, ran out as a result of a European-lead boycott of US death penalty states, Georgia began importing the drug from unlawfully from a fly-by-night pharmaceutical wholesaler, Dream Pharma, that operated out of a driving school in Acton, west London.

Earlier coverage from Georgia and Missouri, at the links.

Will Georgia Conduct the First Post-Botch Execution?

Georgia Public Broadcasting posts, "Lawyers For Ga. Death Row Inmate Try Last-Ditch Legal Maneuvers Ahead Of Tuesday Execution," by Adam Ragusea.

Lawyers for a Georgia death row inmate scheduled to die Tuesday evening will try some last-ditch maneuvers in court Monday.

Marcus Wellons is set to be the first person executed with Georgia's new secret source of lethal injection drugs.

He would also be the first person executed in the United States since Clayton Locket, who died April 29 of a heart attack after Oklahoma prison officials failed to kill him with lethal injection drugs also sourced from anonymous pharmaceutical companies.

Lawyers need to know where the drugs are coming from, said Jen Moreno, staff attorney for the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and consultant for Wellons' defense team.

"Georgia death row inmate set to die Tuesday," is Kate Brumback's AP report, via the Savannah News.

He has a clemency hearing before the State Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday. But if his execution goes forward as planned Tuesday, Wellons will be the first inmate put to death in the U.S. since a botched execution in Oklahoma in April.

And:

Georgia uses only one drug — the sedative pentobarbital — for executions. Like many other states, Georgia has had trouble obtaining execution drugs in recent years because major drugmakers, many based in Europe where opposition to capital punishment is strong, began refusing to sell their products if they were to be used in an execution.

The Georgia Department of Corrections has confirmed that it has secured the pentobarbital for Wellons’ execution from a compounding pharmacy, which custom-make drug preparations.

Tuesday’s execution will mark the first time the state uses compounded pentobarbital in an execution, though other states have done so. Georgia also used a compounding pharmacy last July to get pentobarbital for an execution that ultimately was delayed, but that drug expired a month later. The state declined to identify the compounding pharmacy, citing a 2013 law that prohibits the disclosure of the identity of any entity involved in an execution.

"Fulton judges denies Wellons appeal of contested lethal injection," is by Rhonda Cook for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Condemned killer Marcus Wellons lost a round of last-minute appeals Friday when a Fulton County judge rejected his lawyers’ argument that lethal injection is a medical procedure and the state had to follow certain rules in securing a compounded drug for his scheduled execution on Tuesday.

“Lethal injection does not constitute practice of medicine,” Superior Court Judge Alford Dempsey said as he also gave Wellons’ lawyers a certificate to immediately appeal the decision to the State Supreme Court.

Wellons is also trying to stop his execution on two other fronts. His lawyers have an appointment with the State Board of Pardons and Paroles Monday morning. Later in the day his lawyers will argue in federal court that the secrecy around the identities of the pharmacy and pharmacist who makes the 5000 milligrams of pentobarbital for Wellons’ execution violates his constitutional rights.

To date, there have been 20 executions in American death penalty states this year; a total of 1,379 post-Furman executions since 1977.  Georgia has carried out 53 post-Furman executions since 1983.  It's last execution was in 2013.

Earlier coverage from Georgia begins at the link.

 

Maurice Chammah on the History of Pentobarbital

"The Many Lives of a Death Drug," is the title of Maurice Chammah latest article in Texas Monthly.  Here's the beginning of this must-read:

On April 29 a media frenzy erupted over a botched execution in Oklahoma. The story is now familiar: a doctor administered a three-drug cocktail to convicted murderer Clayton Lockett. He lost consciousness for a few minutes, according to eyewitnesses, then regained it, writhed in apparent pain, and cried out, “Oh, man.” Officials said it was the administration of the drug—not the drug itself—that caused the complication, but nonetheless, the incident turned international attention to the logistics of carrying out the death penalty.

The controversy spilled south to Texas, which has the country’s most active death chamber, where the next execution, of a man named Robert James Campbell, was scheduled for May 13. A federal court stayed Campbell’s execution over questions about his mental faculties, but news outlets around the world had already tied his story to the debate about lethal injection drugs.

The next Texas execution, of a man named Manuel Vasquez, is scheduled for August. He will be given a fatal dose of a single drug, pentobarbital, in a protocol the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has been using since 2012. Death penalty opponents will be looking for evidence that the drug causes Vasquez to feel pain, a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, while Texas prison officials, it is safe to presume, will be hoping for a smooth procedure so as to not invite the attention of journalists and activists.

Pentobarbital will take the stage again, and one question above all others will be asked of the drug: Is it a painless way to die?

Earlier coverage of Texas lethal injection issues begins at the link.  Related posts are in the lethal injection category index.

Activism in Minnesota

"New front for death penalty debate: Pharmacy rules, including in Minnesota," is by Brian Bakst of Associated Press, via the Minneapolis-St. Paul Pioneer Press.

In a new tactic, death penalty opponents are lobbying state health regulators to prohibit pharmacists from mixing the drugs for lethal injection.

They started Wednesday in Minnesota, where capital punishment doesn't exist and where there isn't evidence pharmacists are supplying any execution drugs. The push is driven by concern that unproven drugs have caused botched executions and a belief that pharmacists are duty-bound to promote well-being rather than aid in death.

Minnesota's Board of Pharmacy opened its discussion but postponed any action until September to give people on both sides of the issue time to make their case. Even then, board executive director Cody Wiberg said his preference would be to let the Legislature decide next year given the controversial nature.

"Just because we don't have a death penalty and you might get a more sympathetic ear than a state like Texas, it does not mean it will be an easy row to hoe," Wiberg told The Associated Press after the hearing.

Minnesota abolished its death penalty in 1911 and lawmakers turned back an effort to reinstate it a decade ago.

Related posts are in the compounding pharmacy category index.

Austin American-Statesman Editorial

"Abbott does an about-face on open records," is the editorial published in the Saturday Austin American-Statesman.

Attorney General Greg Abbott’s recent ruling that Texas prison officials do not have to disclose the source of the state’s execution drug was a defeat for open government and brings into question Abbott’s commitment to government transparency.

The decision, issued May 29, represents a change of mind for Abbott, the Republican candidate for governor. Three times since 2010, the attorney general had stood with the Texas Public Information Act and rejected attempts by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to keep secret the source of the drug it uses in lethal injections. His office, citing lack of proof provided by the department, rejected arguments that disclosing the information would endanger the drug suppliers.

This time, however, Abbott agreed that revealing the supplier’s name would put it at “substantial threat of physical harm.” Abbott’s office relied on a “threat assessment” from Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw for allowing the open-records exception. McCraw’s letter referred to threats made against The Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy, a Houston-area pharmacy that previously supplied the state with pentobarbital, the barbiturate it uses in lethal injections, but didn’t specify what the threats were or what was being done about them.

And:

We have never before had occasion to question Abbott’s commitment to open government. Unfortunately, with his about-face on this important issue, that’s no longer the case.

Earlier coverage of the Texas Attorney General's Open Records Decision begins at the link.

More News From Missouri - Updated

Update: "Death row inmate Winfield seeks stay of execution from Missouri Supreme Court," is the AP report, via the Tribune.

A Missouri inmate scheduled to be put to death next week is asking the Missouri Supreme Court to halt the execution.

John Winfield faces execution June 18 for killing two women in St. Louis County in 1996. In a court filing on Monday, attorneys for Winfield say it is unconstitutional for the state to execute him with "an unregulated compounded drug, from an undisclosed supplier, made of unknown ingredients, and through unknown processes."

"Reporter's notebook: Legal moves before execution scheduled June 18," is by Jeremy Kohler for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Missouri’s streak of six executions in six months ended in May when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the state to hold off on putting Russell Bucklew to death. The rare intervention allowed time for lower courts to consider whether death by injection would be excruciating for Bucklew, who suffers from a rare medical condition.

But the state is planning to go ahead June 18 with a lethal injection for convicted murderer John E. Winfield, 46.

Time posts, "Death Lab: Missouri Eyes Its Own Lethal Injection Pharmacy," by Josh Sanburn.

In a speech to the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis late last month, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster called for a “state-operated, DEA-licensed laboratory to produce the execution chemicals in our state,” and urged the legislature to fund the country’s first pharmacy specifically for carrying out lethal injection.

By manufacturing its own drugs, the state could, in theory, get around several difficulties in administering executions. It wouldn’t have to rely on compounding pharmacies, which are often kept anonymous and are unregulated by the federal government. It would be able to have a consistent and adequate supply of drugs, helping the state avoid changes to its drug protocol and the use of drugs in untested combinations. And most importantly, the state might be able to avoid future lawsuits regarding the origins of lethal injection drugs, which have put a halt to many executions around the country—not to mention troublesome executions like that of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma and Dennis McGuire in Ohio. Meanwhile, the Associated Press, the Guardian and three other news organizations have sued Missouri in an attempt to get the state Department of Corrections to reveal its drug sources. But even considering all that, the cost and sheer logistics of building a pharmacy from the ground up to manufacture a handful of drugs may not be worth it.

“There’s no way I could justify the cost on something like that” if the state is only using it to produce just one or two drugs, says Ernie Gates, president of Gates Healthcare Associates, which consults and advises pharmacies. “The commitment would have to be significant.”

Earlier coverage of John Winfield's case begins at the link.  You can also jump to news of the Missouri AG's speech.

No Deadly Secrets

That's the title of an editorial published in today's Houston Chronicle.  It's subtitled, "We should know where our state is spending tax dollars used to buy death-row drugs."  Here's the beginning:

Attorney General Greg Abbott may be a partisan figure, but he boasts two habits that earn him respect across the board: sticking to his word and supporting transparency in government. So Texans of all stripes should be particularly distressed by his office's recent rejection of an open records request concerning the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

With an increasing number of pharmacies unwilling to provide the drugs necessary for lethal injections, states have had to look elsewhere for the darkly ironic combination of something that is both deadly and safe. Executions cannot be cruel nor unusual - a difficult standard to meet.

Yet recent open records requests for information on the deadly cocktails that Texas plans to use on death row have hit a brick wall at Abbott's office. With this decision to shut the doors to open government, Abbott flip-flops on his proud record of rejecting government secrecy.

"TDCJ Viewing Policy Reduces Witnesses to Executions," is by Terri Langford for the Texas Tribune.

At a time when a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma and secrecy about how Texas prisons obtain lethal injection drugs have increased public scrutiny of the procedure, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is allowing fewer media outlets to attend executions. 

There are only five media seats available in one of two tiny viewing rooms adjacent to the Texas execution chamber in Huntsville. While some of those seats have long been reserved for specific media outlets, the TDCJ has in the past allowed other reporters to fill empty chairs when those journalists couldn't attend. Now, those seats remain empty, reducing the number of witnesses in the nation's busiest death chamber.

About two to three years ago, TDCJ public affairs officials began more strictly apportioning media seats, said Jason Clark, who became the agency's chief spokesman in 2013. The media seats in the viewing room are the only way members of the public who aren't related to the murder victim or the condemned inmate can obtain independent observations of the controversial procedure.

And:

Just before a last-minute stay halted TDCJ’s execution of Robert James Campbell last month — the nation’s first execution scheduled after the mishandled April 29 execution in Oklahoma of Clayton Lockett — eight media members had requested a seat in the witness room. TDCJ approved seats for reporters from the Associated Press, The Huntsville Item and Houston Chronicle, and from two Houston-area TV stations. Requests from reporters for ABC News, The New York Times and The Texas Tribune were denied, and they would not have been allowed to attend even if the other reporters were unable to. 

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1982, TDCJ has usually reserved two of the five media seats in the execution viewing room, one for the Associated Press and one for The Huntsville Item.

Decades ago, the other three seats could be taken by others who asked, with preference to journalists who were based in the region where the crime occurred.

Earlier coverage begins at the link.

Execution Commentary Roundup

"There Is No Such Thing as a ‘Clean’ Execution," is Jesse Wegman's post at the New York Times Taking Note blog.

Several commenters took exception to a line in a Taking Note post last week about Ohio’s moratorium on executions, which followed a series of botched attempts there and elsewhere to kill inmates using lethal injection.

The post argued that “there’s no clean way to kill someone: either it’s quick and bloody, which has been deemed too ‘barbaric,’ or it involves cooked skin, accidental decapitation, gasping, snorting, choking and the like.”

"A Message to Texas Compounding Pharmacies: Kill secrets, not people," is by Marty Troyer at the Houston Chronicle's Peace Pastor blog.  He is pastor of Houston Mennonite Church.

It’s no secret that Texas believes deeply in its right to kill, having done so more than any other state and already 7 times this year. It’s also no secret Texas thinks this actually works; as in, killing people gets you what you want, teaches people how wrong they are, and is a clear form of communication.

Which is exactly what most killers think: killing works. Elliot Rodger in southern California, Army Specialist Ivan Lopez at Fort Hood, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Boston, Adam Lanza in Newtown and the state of Texas all operate out of the same twisted and false narrative: that killing works: it gets you want you want, teaches people they are wrong, and is a clear form of communication.

What is a secret though, is where the drugs for our executions are made. Attorney General Greg Abbott has recently decided that Texas can keep our drug source secret, despite worries from those on death row, a botched execution in Oklahoma (that used different drugs), and the fact that the compounding pharmacy which makes the drug is not regulated.

The Berkshire Eagle in Massachusetts publishes commentary by Robert F. Jakubowicz, "The first 'humane' execution."  It contains an abbreviated, and fascinating, history of the electric chair.

The public debate today in the wake of the Lockett case, should not be about trying to find an alternative method to execute criminals. It instead should be about eliminating the death penalty. There is no humane way to commit the ultimate cruelest act between humans, namely, the killing of a human in the name of the government by another human. This is government sanctioned homicide.

Additionally, the evidence is now clear that capital punishment does not deter crime. The death penalty is nothing more than punishment and keeping the public safe by permanently removing murderers from the streets. A better way to accomplish these objectives is Massachusetts’ sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

Earlier commentary begins at the link.  Related posts are in the botch category index.

Coverage of Missouri Hearing

"Missouri death row inmate challenges drug supplier secrecy as execution looms," is the AP report filed by Alan Scher Zagier, via the Greenfield Daily Reporter.

The next Missouri death row inmate scheduled to die by injection wants a judge to halt his June 18 execution over concerns that the state's refusal to disclose its drug supplier violates a law protecting the public's right to know.

An attorney for condemned inmate John Winfield asked a Cole County circuit judge on Wednesday to issue a preliminary injunction that would postpone the execution. The legal challenge argues that the Missouri Department of Corrections is violating state public records laws by keeping the identity of its execution drug supplier and other details secret.

The state says such anonymity is vital to protecting the compounding pharmacy that supplies pentobarbital and its employees from retaliation, including possible physical harm.

"There's not a more public act than executing a prisoner," attorney Joseph Luby told Judge Jon Beetem during a hearing in the state capital. "It's called the Sunshine Law for a reason. We have a strong policy of promoting open government."

Beetem didn't immediately rule on the injunction request but said he expects to do so soon. The execution is in two weeks.

St. Louis Public Radio posts, "Judge Hears Arguments Over Missouri Execution Secrecy," by Chris McDaniel.

Missouri relies on compounded pentobarbital for its executions. The quality of compounding drugs can vary from batch to batch, and Luby argued that knowing the supplier is essential to knowing the quality of the drug.

A St. Louis Public Radio investigation revealed the state's previous supplier was not licensed to sell in the state and had been cited for questionable practices. The state has since found a new supplier but has kept virtually all information about it hidden.

The attorney general's office argued that the secrecy was important for the state's interests in carrying out executions. If the identity of those supplying the drugs were to become public, they wouldn't be able to carry out executions, they said.

"If this information were to get out, there's no putting the genie back in the bottle," said Stephen Doerhoff, an assistant attorney general.

The judge did not seem to be convinced by that argument.

There is another issue in the case, as well.  "Missouri Officials Intimidated Prison Employee Who Sought To Halt Inmate’s Death Sentence, Lawsuit Alleges," is by Nicole Flatow at Think Progress.

A Missouri inmate is scheduled to die June 18 for the murder of two women. One unidentified staff member who has worked with John Winfield in the years since his conviction has said he has “not the same person who committed the crime that sent him to death row” and does not deserve to die. In conversations with Winfield’s lawyers, he said Winfield is in the “elite one percent of all inmates” who “shows his remorse for his crime in his every day actions and the life that he chooses to live” and will make positive contributions to the lives of many others if permitted to live.

But on the day after this staff member told his supervisors he planned to write a letter in support of Winfield, he became the subject of an investigation by the prison that threatened his employment status and caused him to revoke his statements, according to legal filings by Winfield’s lawyers.

The staff member, whose name is being withheld because of threats against him, was told he was being investigated for “overfamiliarity” with Winfield. The staff member has been a state Department of Corrections employee for more than 20 years, and worked with Winfield for several years while he was employed at Potosi Correctional Center. The staff member stated that he was a strong supporter of execution at the beginning of his career, but has, over time, “met a few exceptional individuals who have been sentenced to death, but who have become changed men.” He considers Winfield one of those men, pointing to both Winfield’s exceptional work ethic, and numerous examples of Winfield’s “dedicat[ion] to helping those who are in pain.”

Earlier coverage of John Winfield's case begins at the link.

Sponsor Pulls Louisiana LI Secrecy Bill as Legislative Session Ends

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports, "Louisiana legislator pulls bill to keep death penalty drugs confidential," by Julia O'Donoghue.

State Rep. Joe Lopinto, R-Metairie, has decided to scrap his legislation to keep the source of death penalty drugs confidential in Louisiana. The measure was sailing through the Louisiana Legislature, but opposed by defense attorneys, government transparency groups and journalists.

"I didn't know where this was going to lead us," said Lopinto, "We've had two botched executions [in other states] since [the legislation was introduced]."

Under the measure, the source of the death penalty drugs would not only have been kept secret, but the Louisiana Department of Corrections would have been allowed to purchase the medication from out-of-state pharmacies for the first time.

"Louisiana shelves execution secrecy law," is by Ed Pilkington for the Guardian.

A bill in Louisiana that would have given the state one of the toughest execution secrecy regimes in the US has been pulled by its Republican sponsor at the last minute.

Observers had expected the bill, HB 328, to go through without difficulty. It had already received the approval of both houses of the state legislature and was awaiting final agreement on amendments. Among its provisions HB 328 would have prevented the public from knowing the source of the state's lethal injection drugs.

But with just hours to go before the end of the assembly's legislative session its proposer, Joe Lopinto, killed the bill unilaterally. He told reporters from local papers that he had decided in the wake of the recent uproar over botched executions in other states to play a longer game.

“We passed a resolution today to study this issue. There’s no reason for us to rush through and pass piecemeal legislation that will only be a short-term fix for something that needs a long-term solution,” Lopinto told the Shreveport Times.

He added: “Why make Louisiana spend a whole bunch of money defending court cases when other states are doing that as we speak?”

As the Baton Rouge Advocate notes, the Louisiana 2014 legislative session ended yesterday.

Earlier coverage from Louisiana begins at the link.

Continuing Coverage of the AG's Open Records Ruling

Sunday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram published the editorial, "Greg Abbott switches position on Death Row drugs sources."

Abbott told officials of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice on Thursday that they “must withhold the identifying information of the pharmacy and pharmacist” that are the state’s latest source of the drug used in death penalty cases.

It’s understandable that the latest case might be different. The death penalty is fraught with controversy, and circumstances change rapidly where emotions run high.

But what exactly has changed? Texans are left to guess.

According to Abbott’s letter to TDCJ, a “threat assessment” from the Texas Department of Public Safety is what caused him to change his mind this time. But DPS won’t release that assessment or say whether any pharmacies are in danger or what the agency might be doing to investigate.

A TDCJ spokesman told The Associated Press it’s all “law enforcement sensitive information.”

Understandably, attorneys for Death Row inmates are sensitive about it, too.

AP reports, "Texas Won't Detail Threats Behind Drug Reversal," by Nomaan Merchant.  It's via ABC News.

Texas law enforcement officials are refusing to say what threats were behind a key letter that led the state attorney general to reverse his long-held position that the identity of Texas' execution drug provider should be made public.

The Texas Department of Public Safety's one-page letter was cited Thursday by the Texas Attorney General's Office, which ruled state prison officials could keep its provider a secret. On Friday, the Department of Public Safety called any details about threats "law enforcement sensitive information," refusing to say if any pharmacies were in danger or what the agency was doing to investigate.

Anti-death penalty advocates have accused Texas and other states of trumping up threats to avoid disclosing their providers. So far, state and local law enforcement agencies have said little publicly about why they feel pharmacies are in danger.

The state prison system has long argued that safety concerns required it to keep suppliers' information private. Three times, Attorney General Greg Abbott's office refused the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's requests, saying the agency hadn't done enough to prove a threat.

In one of those opinions, issued two years ago, the office said that "while we acknowledge the department's concerns, we find you have not established disclosure of the responsive information would create a substantial threat of physical harm to any individual."

Earlier coverage of the Texas Attorney General's open records decision begins at the link.

Missouri AG Calls on State to Manufacture LI Drugs

"Attorney general proposes that Missouri make its own lethal injection chemicals," is by Tony Rizzo of the Kansas City Star.

Missouri’s struggles to obtain drugs to carry out executions have been plagued by controversy and legal challenges.

On Thursday, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster proposed a solution: Missouri should make its own lethal injection chemicals.

“The legislature should appropriate funds to establish a state-operated, DEA-licensed laboratory to produce the execution chemicals in our state,” Koster said in a speech to a bar association group at the Lake of the Ozarks.

Today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, "Missouri attorney general: State needs its own execution pharmacy," by Jeremy Kohler.

“Lethal injection relies upon an uneasy cooperation between medical professionals who assist in the executions, pharmaceutical companies that provide the chemicals, and the state,” Koster said, according to a copy of his speech. “In recent years, this cooperative arrangement has become so strained that continued use of lethal injection as the preferred execution method is currently being reconsidered in several states.”

Last week in Tennessee, for example, the governor signed into law a bill that would allow for death by electrocution if drugs for lethal injections were not available.

Koster noted that journalists and condemned inmates have pressed the state for disclosure about how the drugs are made, and who makes them.

Earlier this month, the Post-Dispatch and other news organizations sued the Missouri Department of Corrections to compel it to release information about the drugs the state uses for injection executions.

You can read the Missouri Attorney General's prepared remarks, thanks to the Post-Dispatch.

"Missouri official proposes execution drug lab," is the AP report filed by Jim Salter, via the Springfield News-Leader.

Missouri should establish its own laboratory to produce chemicals for use in executions rather than rely on an "uneasy cooperation" with medical professionals and pharmaceutical companies, the state's attorney general said Thursday.

Attorney General Chris Koster, a Democrat, spoke to the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis during the group's meeting at Lake of the Ozarks.

"For Missouri to maintain lethal injection ... it is my belief the Legislature should remove market-driven participants and pressures from the system and appropriate funds to establish a state-operated, DEA-licensed, laboratory to produce the execution chemicals in our state," said Koster, according to a transcript provided by his office.

A state-operated execution drug lab would be a first, and it isn't clear if it could be implemented through a simple change in Missouri's protocol or if legislative approval would be necessary. Messages seeking comment from officials with the Department of Corrections and the Attorney General's office were not returned.

St. Louis Public Radio posts, "Expressing Concern Over Execution Secrecy, Koster Calls On State To Make Lethal Injection Drugs," by Chris McDaniel.

The announcement comes at a time when there are few willing suppliers, which Koster admitted in his speech.

"The vast majority of medical professionals refuse to participate in any aspect of the procedure, believing it conflicts with their Hippocratic Oath," Koster said, according to a copy of his speech, which he delivered to  a conference of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis at the Lake of the Ozarks.

To hide the identity of those that are willing, the state made the supplier of its execution drugs a secret last October. An investigation by St. Louis Public Radio revealed that the state’s previous supplier was not licensed to sell in Missouri and had been cited in the past by regulatory agencies.

To keep it a secret, the state was paying this pharmacy a little more than $11,000, all in cash, each execution.

Koster has ardently supported secrecy in the past. But speaking in Lake of the Ozarks, he said the transparency questions should "concern all of us deeply."

“While this creeping secrecy is legal, it may not be prudent, and it merits the attention of state lawmakers,” he said.

"Missouri attorney general wants the state to produce its own lethal injection drugs," is by Mark Berman of the Washington Post.

Missouri has executed four people in 2014, which is as many people as the state executed between 2006 and 2013.

The botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma last month drew worldwide attention, reviving a debate over the death penalty and the way it is carried out in the United States. An execution in Texas, set to be the first since the botch in Oklahoma, was halted hours before the injection after a court cited the intellectual disability of inmate Robert James Campbell.

As a result, Missouri’s scheduled execution of Russell Bucklew last week would have been the first in the country since the Oklahoma episode. That execution was halted, reinstated and halted again during a judicial back-and-forth before the Supreme Court ultimately stayed the execution and sent it back to lower courts. Attorneys for Campbell and Bucklew had criticized the secrecy involved in the lethal injection process in both states.

Additional coverage includes:

"Attorney General Koster Thinks Missouri Should Make Its Own Execution Drugs," by Lindsay Tolerfor River Front Times.

ABA Journal posts, "AG’s unique solution to dearth of execution drugs: State should manufacture its own supply," by Martha Neil.

Earlier coverage from Missouri begins at the link.

Texas AG Reverses Earlier Open Records Rulings on LI Drug Info

The following is a statement from attorney Maurie Levin, whose public information request was denied by the Attorney General today:

"It is deeply disturbing and frankly quite shocking that the highest law enforcement official in the state has suddenly reversed his position on disclosure when it comes to lethal injection, particularly considering the horrifically botched execution in Oklahoma last month that was the direct result of secrecy surrounding the process.

Serious questions surround this about-face, including why our Attorney General, who once championed transparency, is suddenly now supporting secretive government practices.”

"Abbott switches mind on death drug secrecy," is Mike Ward's report for the Houston Chronicle.

In a surprise legal about-face, Attorney General Greg Abbott on Thursday ruled that state prison officials no longer have to tell the public where they obtain drugs used to execute condemned criminals.

Abbott's decision falls in line with other states that have sought to keep secret the source of their lethal drugs, to keep death-penalty opponents from pressuring suppliers to quit selling to execution chambers. His decision reversed three rulings since 2010 that had mandated the information about the suppliers be made public.

Abbott, the Republican nominee for governor in the state that operates the nation's busiest death chamber, said in his five-page decision that he was swayed to allow secrecy by a "threat assessment" from Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, that disclosure of details could endanger suppliers.

AP coverage is, "Abbott backs secrecy on drugs for executions," by Nomaan Merchant and Michael Graczyk, via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Texas prison officials don’t have to tell the public where they get execution drugs, Attorney General Greg Abbott said Thursday, reversing himself on an issue being challenged in several death penalty states.

Since 2010, Abbott, the Republican nominee for governor in the nation’s busiest death penalty state, had three times told prison officials that they should reveal the source of the drugs. He ruled that the benefits of government transparency outweighed the state’s objections.

But on Thursday, Abbott’s office sided with state prison officials who said their supplier would be in danger if identified, citing a “threat assessment” signed by Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw.

The assessment, a one-page letter dated March 7, said pharmacies “by design are easily accessible to the public and present a soft target to violent attacks.” Naming a pharmacy that supplies execution drugs “presents a substantial threat of physical harm … and should be avoided to the greatest extent possible,” the letter said.

Abbott’s decision, which can be appealed to the courts, came the same day that Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said his state should consider creating its own laboratory for execution drugs rather than relying on “uneasy cooperation” with outside sources. A state-run lab would be a first, and it wasn’t clear whether Missouri could implement the change without approval from the Legislature.

 "Greg Abbott: Keep execution drug supplier secret," is by Chuck Lindell for the Austin American-Statesman.

Prison officials had tried — and failed — to use that Supreme Court ruling in previous attempts to withhold the name of the state’s execution drug supplier. In July 2012, for example, Abbott’s office found that prison officials had failed to prove that harassment of suppliers “could escalate into violence.”

The latest effort, however, included a “threat assessment” from Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw that changed the outcome, according to the letter written by Assistant Attorney General Yen-Ha Le.

“It is our assessment that some of the threats made to the Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy that we identified should be taken seriously,” McCraw wrote. “Pharmacies by design are easily accessible to the public and present a soft target to violent attacks.”

Naming the state’s execution drug supplier “should be avoided to the greatest extent possible,” McCraw wrote.

In the letter to prison officials, Le said the Supreme Court noted that “deference must be afforded” to risk assessments made by law enforcement experts. Given McCraw’s evaluation, Le concluded, “We find the department must withhold the identifying information of the pharmacy and pharmacist.”

The Texas Tribune posts, "AG: Prisons Can Keep Info About Execution Drugs Secret," by Terri Langford.

Abbott, in his ruling, said that the DPS “threat assessment” was the proof needed to keep private information about suppliers of lethal drugs used by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The ruling allowing secrecy is noteworthy because it was made in the midst of Abbott's campaign for Texas governor against Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis and because in three prior rulings, Abbott has ruled for transparency when it comes to execution information. Calls to Abbott's state office and his campaign office were not immediately returned Thursday.

Earlier coverage of Texas lethal injection issues begins at the link.  Also available, unrelated, more recent coverage from Texas.

Georgia Supreme Court OKs State LI Secrecy Law

The Georgia Supreme Court ruling in Owens et al v. Hill is available in Adobe .pdf format.  The ruling was issued yesterday.

"Court upholds lethal-injection secrecy law," is by Bill Rankin in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The Georgia Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of a state law that keeps secret the identities of the makers and suppliers of Georgia’s lethal-injection drugs.

The court, in a 5-2 decision, rejected a challenge to the statute filed by lawyers for condemned killer Warren Hill. The ruling should clear the way for a number of executions, which have been on hold while the case was pending.

And:

Benham, who authored the dissent, noted the recently botched execution in Oklahoma of inmate Clayton D. Lockett, who died of a heart attack after he writhed, gasped and struggled to lift his head after being declared unconscious on the lethal-injection gurney.

“I write because I fear this state is on a path that, at the very least, denies Hill and other death row inmates their rights to due process and, at the very worst, leads to the macabre results that occurred in Oklahoma,” wrote Benham, who was joined by Justice Carol Hunstein. “There must be certainty in the administration of the death penalty.”

The case involved an appeal by the state from an order issued last July by Fulton Superior Court Judge Gail Tusan, who found the law was likely unconstitutional. In her ruling, Tusan halted the execution of Hill so she could more closely examine the secrecy law. But the court reversed Tusan’s decision.

AP coverage is, "Georgia high court upholds law protecting anonymity of execution drug suppliers," by Kate Brumback.  It's via the Greenfield Daily Reporter.

Presiding Justice P. Harris Hines wrote in the 33-page majority opinion keeping secret the identity of entities involved in an execution can shield them from harassment or retaliation from family members of inmates or from death penalty opponents. Hines added that, without that confidentiality, there is a significant risk that entities needed for an execution might be unwilling to participate.

"(W)e conclude that Georgia's execution process is likely made more timely and orderly by the execution-participant confidentiality statute and, furthermore, that significant personal interests are also protected by it," the majority opinion says.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Robert Benham recounted the details of the botched April 29 execution of Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett, who writhed on the gurney, gritted his teeth, and moaned before dying of an apparent heart attack 43 minutes after the start of his execution. The secrecy law puts the state on a path that denies death row inmates their rights to due process and could lead to a result similar to what happened in Oklahoma, Benham wrote.

"The fact that some drug providers may be subject to harassment and/or public ridicule and the fact that authorities may find it more difficult to obtain drugs for use in executions are insufficient reasons to forgo constitutional processes in favor of secrecy, especially when the state is carrying out the ultimate punishment," the dissenting opinion says.

"Georgia Supreme Court rules secret source for lethal injection drugs law constitutional," in the Albany Herald.

The Georgia Supreme Court has reversed a stay of execution for Warren Lee Hill, who murdered another inmate at the state prison in Leesburg in 1990. The court in a 5-2 vote rejected the arguments of Hill’s attorneys that Georgia’s refusal to disclose the source of its lethal drugs was unconstitutional.

Last July, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Gail Tusan postponed Hill’s execution to review at 2013 state law that makes the identities of those who supply or compound drugs used in Georgia executions “a confidential state secret.”

Jesse Wegman writes, "In Georgia, Secrecy Is More Important Than Life," at the New York Times Taking Note blog.

Putting aside for the moment whether an executioner’s (or drugmaker’s) interest in avoiding harassment should outweigh the constitutional rights of a condemned man, it is notable that courts never seem to identify any actual instances of harassment, only the “risk” of it.

The death penalty in America long ago lost any claim to being consistently or fairly applied, if it ever was. But as Justice Benham argued, there must at the very least be “certainty” in its administration.

“Georgia’s confidential inmate state secret statute,” he wrote, “does nothing to achieve a high level of certainty. Rather, the law has the effect of creating the very secret star chamber-like proceedings in which this State has promised its citizens it would not engage.”

Earlier coverage of Warren Hill's case begins at the link.

Although it was not an issue in this ruling, Warren Hill is acknowledged to have intellectual disability.   

As I often point out, mental retardation is now generally referred to as a developmental or intellectual disability. 

Because it has a specific meaning with respect to capital cases, I continue to use the older term on the website.  More on Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court's 2002 ruling banning the execution of those with mental retardation, is via Oyez.

Related posts are in the mental retardation category index.

Secret Drugs, Agonizing Deaths

That's the title of an OpEd published in today's New York Times, written by Megan McCracken and Jennifer Moreno.  They are attorneys with the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.  Here's the beginning:

FACING a critical shortage of lethal injection drugs, prison officials in a number of states have recently engaged in an unseemly scramble to obtain new execution drugs, often from unreliable and even illegal sources. Not only does this trend raise serious questions about the constitutionality of executions, it also undermines the foundations of our democratic process. In the name of security, states are now withholding vital information about their death penalty procedures — from death row prisoners’ lawyers and from judges, whose stamp of approval they need to impose the ultimate sanction, as well as from the public, in whose name the sentence is carried out.

Earlier coverage of lethal injection secrecy issues begins at the link.  Related posts are in the lethal injection category index.

Los Angeles Times on LI Drug Secrecy

Today's Los Angeles Times publishes the editorial, "The lethal injection debate: How much should death row inmates know?"

This page opposes the death penalty as barbaric and immoral, the irreversible end result of an often flawed judicial process. While most of the industrialized world has done away with the practice, 32 states and the U.S. government still pursue it.

Many states, though, are having trouble procuring drugs because manufacturers are increasingly refusing to sell to executioners. Some states have turned to compounding pharmacies, which ordinarily customize drugs for patients for whom manufacturers' drugs don't work. A subset of those states have adopted laws barring public disclosure of the compounding pharmacies to preclude protests.

This is wrong, as we've said before in the Oklahoma case. If the government insists on executing its citizens, it must do so in as transparent a way as possible, so that death row inmates can know whether their punishment violates the 8th Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

And that goes for California too.

Earlier coverage of lethal injection drug secrecy begins at the link.

Texas Execution Set for Wednesday

Texas is set to carry out its sixth execution of 2014, tonight in Huntsville.  It would be the 514th post-Furman Texas execution since 1982, and the 275th execution under the administration of Gov. Rick Perry. Texas is responsible for more than 37% of the nation's post-Furman executions.

"Texas parole board refuses to stop execution," is the AP report by Michael Graczyk, via the Austin American-Statesman.

On Wednesday, Hernandez-Llanas, 44, was set for lethal injection that would make him the second Texas prisoner within a week executed with a supply of pentobarbital newly obtained from a source Texas prison officials have refused to identify.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals from another Texas death row inmate, Tommy Lynn Sells, whose attorneys argued unsuccessfully they needed the name of the drug supplier to verify its potency to determine he wouldn’t be subjected to unconstitutional pain and suffering. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice contends the information needs to be withheld to keep the new drug provider from threats of violence from death penalty opponents.

Sells quietly went to his death Thursday with the new drug.

Hernandez-Llanas also was a plaintiff in Sells’ lawsuit. On Monday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a reprieve he won from a lower court, putting his punishment back on track. Attorneys for the condemned prisoner declined to appeal because the Supreme Court turned down the same request from Sells.

There have been 15 executions in American death penalty states this year; a total of 1,374 post-Furman executions since 1977.

Houston's KPFT-FM will host Execution Watch on the web and its HD radio broadcast signal beginning at 6:00 p.m. (CDT), this evening.

According to TDCJ, Texas state district courts have set three additional execution dates.

Lethal Injection Roundup

"In Most States, Execution Drugs Are Surrounded By Secrecy," is an extensive review by the Associated Press writers Jim Salter and Andrew Welsh-Huggins, via Huffington Post.  It's also available from the Southeast Missourian.  Here's the beginning:

Dating to the days when the guillotine operator or the hangman wore a mask, a certain amount of anonymity has always surrounded executions. But that secrecy is increasingly coming under fire, with judges, death penalty opponents and lawyers questioning why so little can be known about a state's most solemn responsibility.

An Associated Press survey of the 32 death penalty states found that the vast majority refuse to disclose the source of their execution drugs. The states cloaked in secrecy include some with the most active death chambers — among them Texas, Florida, Oklahoma and Missouri.

Most states have recently begun relying on loosely regulated "compounding pharmacies" for execution drugs but refuse to name them, citing concerns about backlash that could endanger the supplier's safety. But many states refuse to provide even more basic information — how much of the drug is on hand, the expiration date, how it is tested. Those who question the secrecy wonder how an inmate's constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment can be guaranteed if nothing is known about the drug being used to kill him.

"As far as we know, it could be coming from a veterinary source, it could be coming from some dark corner of the Internet," said Cheryl Pilate, a Kansas City, Mo., attorney who handles death row appeals. "We simply don't know."

"Glance: Execution drug secrecy in 5 states," is an AP sidebar, via the Washington Post.

An Associated Press survey of the nation’s 32 death penalty states found that the vast majority refuse to disclose the source of their execution drugs. Some states with laws shielding information about execution drugs and policies and the challenges to those laws:

"Judge: Lawsuit on Missouri executions may continue." is also by AP's Jim Salter, via the Southeast Missourian.

A federal judge is allowing a lawsuit to move forward that challenges Missouri's refusal to provide the name of the pharmacy where it acquired the drug for executions.

U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips on Thursday denied a motion from the Missouri Department of Corrections to dismiss a lawsuit filed in October by the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri. The ACLU lawsuit questions a state statute that prohibits identifying members of the execution team.

At issue is Missouri's refusal to provide the name of the compounding pharmacy that makes pentobarbital for executions. The state considers the pharmacy to be part of the execution team and won't say who makes the drug.

"Since we filed this lawsuit, five people have been killed by the state of Missouri in a procedure that has been shrouded in secrecy," Jeffrey A. Mittman, the ACLU-Missouri's executive director, said in a statement. "Decisions by the Department of Corrections about how to execute must be transparent and open to debate. This secrecy is an effort to avoid public scrutiny."

"Lawyers for 2 Oklahoma death row inmates scheduled to die this month to seek execution stays," is by Bailey Elise McBride of AP, via the Greenfield Reporter.

Lawyers for two Oklahoma death-row inmates say they believe they will be successful in their challenge to the state's execution law, despite adverse U.S. Supreme Court rulings for condemned men from Missouri and Texas.

Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner sued the state of Oklahoma in February over what they called a "veil of secrecy" surrounding execution protocols and the origins of the drugs used in lethal injections. Although the state has released the method of execution it intends to use, the lawyers want to know where the drugs are coming from and who will be testing them to ensure efficacy and purity.

Recent cases in Missouri and Texas also seeking information on drug suppliers were not taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, though lawyers for Lockett and Warner aren't concerned because they're not pursuing claims in federal court.

"We're in a unique situation here because we only have state law claims," said Seth Day, one of the inmates' lawyers.

Lethal injection drug secrecy was a topic on MSNBC's Saturday Melissa Harris-Perry program.  There is video at the link.

Earlier coverage from Missouri and Oklahoma, at the links.  Related posts are in the lethal injection category index.

Supreme Court Declines Lethal Injection Reviews

Today's Supreme Court Order List is available in Adobe .pdf format.

"Supreme Court denies case on death penalty drugs," is by Richard Wolf and Gregg Zoroya of USA Today.

As states scramble to find drugs needed to carry out executions, the Supreme Court won't decide for now whether condemned prisoners deserve to know how they will die.

The justices denied a hearing Monday to a Louisiana inmate who asked that state officials tell him what lethal-injection drugs they have planned for his demise.

The case would have put the court squarely at the center of a life-and-death debate over the constitutional rights of even the most depraved killers to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment.

The decision to stay out of the controversy, at least for now, comes as manufacturers are cutting off supplies of lethal injection drugs because of opposition to the death penalty. That has left prison officials to improvise — sharing drugs, buying them from under-regulated pharmacies or using drug combinations never employed before — to put prisoners to death.

And:

The first four people put to death this year — one each in Florida, Oklahoma, Ohio and Texas — were killed four different ways with various combinations of drugs.

Adam Liptak writes, "Justices Decline Cases on Gay Rights and Campaign Finance," in the New York Times.

The Supreme Court also declined to hear two cases concerning whether death row inmates have a constitutional right to know what chemicals states plan to use to execute them.

And:

One case, Sepulvado v. Jindal, No. 13-892, concerned Christopher Sepulvado, who was convicted of scalding and beating his 6-year-old stepson to death. Mr. Sepulvado’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to decide whether due process “entitles a condemned inmate with timely notice of the method by which he will be executed.”

A second case, Zink v. Lombardi, No. 13-8435, was brought by death row inmates in Missouri. It asked the justices to review an appeals court decision that required them to specify an acceptable form of execution in order to challenge the one that the state intended to employ.

Earlier coverage of Louisiana and Missouri lethal injection issues, at the links.  More lethal injection news will be in the next post.

Threats to Compounding Pharmacies?

"Evidence of threats cited by Texas for keeping supplier of execution drugs a secret is scant," by Nomaan Merchant and Bailey Elise McBride is via U.S. News & World Report.  Here's the beginning of this extensive report:

Texas prison officials have offered scant evidence to support their claim that pharmacies that supply the state with execution drugs would be in danger of violence if their identities were made public.

If those officials are investigating the threats, including a suggestion a truck bomb could blow up a such a pharmacy, as a serious risk to the safety of the pharmacies or their employees, they refuse to acknowledge doing so.

The Associated Press could find no evidence that any such investigations are underway in Texas, and police in the community where one such pharmacy is located said they are not concerned. In neighboring Oklahoma, the attorney general said Thursday he was investigating such a threat, but several other law enforcement agencies told the AP his office has never mentioned it.

Instead, anti-death penalty advocates believe Texas and other states are trumping up the possibility of violence to avoid having to disclose their name of suppliers, ensuring they can keep buying the drugs they need to put condemned inmates to death.

Related posts are in the lethal injection category index.

LI Update From Oklahoma

"Oklahoma attorney general willing to disclose lethal injection drug details, but not supplier," is by Sean Murphy and Bailey Elise McBride of Associated Press, via the Tribune.

With two executions pending this month, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said Thursday his office is willing to provide details about the drugs being used in lethal injections, including dosage protocols and independent test results, but will not name the supplier.

Pruitt said the names of the compounding pharmacies now being used must be kept confidential so Oklahoma can obtain the drugs needed to execute inmates.

And:

Attorneys for Lockett and Warner said they have serious concerns about the use of secret compounding pharmacies to make the drugs.

"It's all information we have to be able to have and to evaluate, but should not have it dumped on us at the last minute, to make sure these drugs are what they purport to be," said Madeline Cohen, an attorney for Warner.

The Oklahoman reports, "Oklahoma attorney general announces change in state's execution procedures," by Graham Lee Brewer.

The state will test its lethal injection drugs for potency and purity and make public the results of those tests for all future executions, state Attorney General Scott Pruitt announced Thursday.

Pruitt told members of the media at a briefing that the state has already had its newly acquired lethal drugs tested by a independent laboratory for both potency and to determine they are free of contaminants.

And:

Warner’s public federal defender, Madeline Cohen, said the notion she or other attorneys involved in the case aim to intimidate pharmacies is ludicrous.

“Our object is to make sure our clients don’t experience a painful and unconstitutional death,” Cohen said. “The names of the drugs and the test results only give us surface level information of the execution.”

Earlier coverage from Oklahoma begins at the link.

Supreme Court Rejects Stay; Texas Executes

"Serial killer executed with Texas' new drug supply," is Michael Graczyk's AP report, via the Austin American-Statesman.

A serial killer was put to death Thursday in Texas after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his lawyers' demand that the state release information about where it gets its lethal injection drug.

Tommy Lynn Sells, 49, was the first inmate to be injected with a dose of newly replenished pentobarbital that Texas prison officials obtained to replace an expired supply of the powerful sedative. When asked if he wanted to make a statement before his execution, Sells replied: "No."

As the drug began flowing into his arms inside the death chamber in Huntsville, Sells took a few breaths, his eyes closed and he began to snore. After less than a minute, he stopped moving. He was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m. CDT - 13 minutes after being given the pentobarbital.

It was Texas' fifth execution of 2014; the 513th post-Furman Texas execution since 1982, and the 274th execution under the administration of Gov. Rick Perry. Texas is responsible for more than 37% of the nation's post-Furman executions.

There have been 15 executions in American death penalty states this year; a total of 1,374 post-Furman executions since 1977. 

According to TDCJ, Texas state district courts have set four additional execution dates.

Earlier coverage of the Texas lethal injection challenge begins at the link.

Supreme Court to Make Texas LI Decision

The most up-to-date AP filing is, "US Supreme Court to decide Texas execution drug case," via the Lubbock Avalanche Journal.  It's by Michael Graczyk.

The U.S. Supreme Court will be asked to halt Thursday’s execution of a Texas serial killer whose attorneys are challenging the state’s refusal to release information about where it gets its lethal injection drug.

Lawyers for Tommy Lynn Sells are making the last-minute plea after a federal appeals court allowed the execution to stay on schedule. A lower court had stayed the execution Wednesday, ordering Texas to reveal more information about its drug supplier, but the ruling was quickly tossed on appeal.

And:

But 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Texas prison officials, who argued that information about the drug supplier must be kept secret to protect the company from threats of violence. It also found that the stock of the pentobarbital, a powerful sedative, falls within the acceptable ranges of potency.

The court said that had Texas wanted to use a drug never used before for executions or a completely new drug whose efficiency or science was unknown, “the case might be different.”

It’s unclear how the Supreme Court would rule. Last month it rejected similar arguments from a Missouri inmate’s attorneys who challenged the secrecy surrounding where that state obtained its execution drugs, and the condemned prisoner was put to death.

Less up-to-date coverage includes:

"Appeals court overturns Texas execution delay," by Dane Schiller and Mike Ward for the Houston Chronicle.

At least one execution was back on late Wednesday after a federal appeals court overturned a Houston federal judge's ruling that put two deaths on hold until the state of Texas shares details of the drugs that will be used to end the mens' lives.

An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was expected Thursday.

Texas prison officials, who are seeking to keep the name of the drug maker secret due to security concerns, planned to proceed with the executions after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday evening overturned an order issued earlier in the day by U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore of Houston.

"Appeals court allows Texas executions to proceed," is by Jon Herskovitz and Heide Brandes of Reuters, via KELO-TV.

A U.S. appeals court overturned a temporary stay of execution on Wednesday for two Texas inmates challenging the state's lack of disclosure about the supplier of the drugs to be used in their lethal injections this month.

The decision puts back on track an execution scheduled for Thursday evening that had been suspended temporarily earlier on Wednesday by a federal judge in Houston, who found that Texas has hidden information about the supplier of the drugs.

U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore ordered the state to disclose, under seal, information regarding its execution drug, finding that Texas had provided information about the process by which the inmates would be executed and "masked information about the product that will kill them."

And:.

"In sum, plaintiffs are speculating that the newly acquired pentobarbital being supplied by a new compounder may be different and may cause a risk of severe pain," the ruling said. "Speculation is not enough."

Earlier coverage of the Texas lethal injection challenge begins at the link.  I'll be updating throughout the day.

Commentary of Texas LI Drug Secrecy

Before today's federal district court action, Texas newspapers were speaking out on the TDCJ's penchant for secrecy.

Today's Austin American-Statesman published the editorial, "Execution drug transparency needed."

The writing of another chapter in Texas’ troubled history with the death penalty is underway, and is being shaped by questions about the state’s supply of lethal injection drugs and the right of the public to know what is being used in its name.

Last week, State District Court Judge Suzanne Covington in Austin delivered a limited victory for transparency and the rights of defendants when she ordered the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to tell the attorneys of two death row inmates the source of the new supply of pentobarbital it plans to use in upcoming lethal injections. The state had argued secrecy was needed to protect the safety of the maker of the pentobarbital; Covington did not order the state to publicly disclose the supplier’s name.

The next morning a three-judge panel of the 3rd Texas Court of Appeals rightly upheld Covington’s ruling. Friday afternoon, however, the Texas Supreme Court stopped Covington’s order from taking effect until justices could study the issue further.

And:

Given the need to honor constitutional protections and transparency, we see no compelling reason why the state shouldn’t reveal information about its supply of pentobarbital.

"Give source of execution drug," is the editorial in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Texas has been adamant in carrying out death sentences and has executed 512 people since 1982. The state’s power in these cases is extreme.

It is incumbent on a society bent on putting offenders to death to allow them wide latitude in fighting for their lives in well-ordered courts.

They may have been convicted of horrendous crimes, but the state must not lower itself to their level by inflicting cruel pain on them with improperly prepared execution drugs.

American-Statesman Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Ken Herman writes, "Drugs, death and the OU game."

Thanks to good work by Katie Fretland of the Colorado Independent, a nonprofit news operation, we know that even matters of life and death are not immune from lawyerly humor.

Fretland recently wrote about states’ ongoing problems in procuring execution drugs. She got 172 pages of emails sparked by Texas Assistant Attorney General Laura Grant Turbin’s January 2011 request for advice from assistant AGs around the nation on using different drugs for executions.

“Records show Oklahoma officials wanted perks for helping Texas in search for scarce lethal injections,” said the headline.

We’re not talking about real perks, really wanted. We’re talking about email humor related to executions. “Disturbing flippancy,” Fretland called it.

Gurney humor, I’d call it.

Earlier coverage of Texas lethal injection issues begins with the preceding post.

Federal District Judge Orders TX LI Drug Disclosure, Stays Executions

The Federal District Court Order is available at the link.

Attorneys Maurie Levin and Jonathan Ross, representing the Texas plaintiffs, have issued the following statement:

“The District Court's Order honors and reflects the crucial importance of transparency in the execution process.  We hope that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will finally decide to comply with the law, and cease attempting to shroud in secrecy one aspect of their job that, above all others, should be conducted in the light of day.  It is TDCJ's attempt to manipulate the system and evade accountability and the rule of law that compelled this last minute litigation, and the need for a stay of execution to permit Plaintiffs and the courts to review the constitutionality of the means and methods by which Texas intends to carry out their execution."

The most recently updated AP report is, "Judge halts Texas executions over drug secrecy," filed by Michael Graczyk, via the Houston Chronicle.

A federal judge on Wednesday halted two executions in Texas, declaring that the state's prison system must disclose to defense attorneys more information about the supplier of a new batch of lethal-injection drugs.

U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore issued a temporary injunction halting the executions of Tommy Lynn Sells, a convicted serial killer who was set to die Thursday, and Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas, another inmate scheduled to die next week.

Texas officials have insisted the identity of the drug supplier must be kept secret to protect the company from threats of violence and that the stock of the sedative pentobarbital falls within the acceptable ranges of potency.

"Federal judge halts executions over drug details," is by Mike Ward for the Chronicle.

A Houston federal judge on Wednesday blocked the executions of two condemned killers who argued that the state's failure to disclose details about the drugs that will be used to kill them violated their constitutional rights.

In a five-page order, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore also ordered prison officials to disclose the names of suppliers of the drug used in executions, the powerful sedative pentobarbital, among other details concerning the acquisition and testing of the drugs.

"Judge blocks 2 executions in drug-source fight," is by Chuck Lindell for the Austin American-Statesman.

“Texas law does not specify what substance will be used in carrying out lethal injections, but federal law requires that any protocol or method used cannot violate the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment,” Gilmore wrote in a five-page order.

“Until plaintiffs have full disclosure of the product with which Texas will cause their death, they cannot fully develop a challenge to its process,” she wrote.

Gilmore chided Texas lawyers for providing her with the “last-minute disclosure” of a redacted lab report said to verify the potency of the pentobarbital. The redactions, however, excluded important information, Gilmore wrote, including the source of the drug, what tests were performed, who did the testing and “numerous other details essential to assessing the quality and efficacy of the drug.”

Gilmore also ordered state officials to disclose — under seal, and therefore not available for public inspection — information about the pentobarbital, including its supplier, and an unredacted report of the lab tests on the drug.

The Texas Tribune posts, "Federal Judge Orders Execution Drug Disclosure," by Terri Langford.

The Attorney General’s office notified the inmates' attorneys and the court that the state's attorneys will appeal Gilmore’s decision.

"Texas executions stayed by federal judge over state's lethal drug source," by Tom Dart for the Guardian.

In a court filing, Texas officials argued that prior executions using pentobarbital have taken place apparently without the inmates enduring obvious pain and cited a report which says that their latest supply has been "tested by an independent laboratory and found to be 108% potent and free from contaminants".

Gilmore noted in her ruling that the state withheld this information until the last minute.

"Even though the report is dated March 20, 2014, Defendants have delayed the production of the report until just two days before the first scheduled execution," she wrote. "That copy, however, has been redacted to exclude important information, presumably including the source of the drugs, who performed the testing, and where it was performed."

"Judge Halts Texas Execution Over Lethal Injection Secrecy," by Tracy Connor at NBC News.

The battle over pharmacy confidentiality has been playing out in states across the country since drug manufacturers stopped selling their wares for executions, causing a nationwide shortage.

Judges in some states have allowed executions to go forward, while others have raised concerns.

 Earlier coverage of Texas lethal injection issues begins at the link.  More on the subject in the next post.

More LI Coverage From Arizona

The Arizona Republic reports, "Drug switch underscores Arizona's struggle with execution standards," by Michael Kiefer.

On Wednesday, the Arizona Department of Corrections announced that it will use a new cocktail of a Valium-like drug, Midazolam, with a morphine derivative, Hydromorphone, in coming executions.

It's the third time the state has been forced to change the protocol since 2010, because of international law, litigation by defense attorneys and agitation by anti-death-penalty activists. In reaction, pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. and Europe have blocked sales of drug after drug to state corrections departments in an effort to prevent their use for execution. The resultant drug shortages have curtailed executions all over the country.

Wednesday's announcement may be a stopgap for Arizona. One domestic manufacturer of the new drugs had already issued a statement that it would blocksales of the drugs for executions.

There is a Plan B. The Department of Corrections has added a provision to its execution that allows it to buy custom-made drugs from compounding pharmacies.

And according to a news release issued Wednesday by the Attorney General's Office, the state intends to use a statute protecting the identity of executioners to conceal the source of the drugs.

Earlier coverage of Arizona lethal injection issues begins at the link.

Texas Supreme Court Stay LI Info Order

"Texas Supreme Court halts release of drug supplier," is by Micahel Graczyk of AP, via the Austin American-Statesman.

Texas' new supplier of execution drugs will remain a secret — at least for now — after the state Supreme Court on Friday temporarily blocked a ruling that the prison agency must disclose the information to attorneys for two death row inmates.

Earlier Friday, an appeals court upheld a district judge's ruling from a day earlier that prison officials should disclose the source of a new batch of pentobarbital to the attorneys of the two inmates scheduled to be executed with the drug next month.

Although the high court's order doesn't address the merits of the case, it allows prison officials to withhold the supplier's name while the justices consider the issue.

Earlier coverage of the Texas lethal injection litigation begins at the link.

5th Circuit Will Not Overturn Louisiana Federal District Court Order

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit's ruling, In Re: LeBlanc, is available in Adobe .pdf format.

"Louisiana must tell death row inmate the origin of drugs for his execution, appeals court says," is the AP report  filed by Kevin McGill, via the New Orleans Times-Picayune.  It's also available from the Shreveport Times.

A federal appeals court Thursday refused to block a lower court’s order requiring Louisiana to provide a condemned child killer, formerly of Mansfield, with information about the seller and maker of drugs the state uses in executions.

Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc and Louisiana State Penitentiary Warden Burl Cain have argued that if they identify how they’re getting the drugs, they could have trouble buying more because companies don’t want to be known as helping in an execution.

However, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the argument, noting that U.S. District Judge James Brady’s order, as amended earlier this month, only requires that the information be given to death row prisoner Christopher Sepulvado, his defense lawyers, defense team experts and court personnel.

And:

In January, Louisiana announced a new execution protocol that would use a two-drug combination, following the method carried out for the first time in Ohio. It includes the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone.

The change came only days before Louisiana planned to execute Sepulvado. After objections from his lawyer, Sepulvado’s lethal injection was delayed.

Brady will hold a trial June 16 about the constitutionality of the new execution protocol.

Earlier coverage from Louisiana begins at the link.  You can also jump to Louisiana lethal injection news.