Texas Judge Rules State Must Reveal Lethal Injection Drug Supplier

A district judge in Texas ruled last week that
the state must disclose the pharmacy that supplies it with lethal
injection drugs because that information is public. It shouldn’t be
a surprising ruling. From whom the government makes its purchases
generally ought to be public information.

But Texas, and other states with the death penalty, all of whom
now use lethal injection as their primary mode of execution, would
prefer its drug suppliers remain confidential. The Texas Department
of Criminal Justice will appeal the ruling. A spokesperson
explained,
via the Texas Tribune:

“As we have said before, disclosing the identity of the pharmacy
would result in the harassment of the business and would raise
serious safety concerns for the business and its employees. It
would also have a significant impact on the agency’s ability to
carry out executions mandated by state law,” Clark said.
“Protecting the identity of the compounding pharmacist has been
previously litigated in both state and federal courts and the
agency anticipates winning on appeal, as it has before, when the
courts examine the case further.”

Texas isn’t the only state trying to keep the identity of its
drug supplier secret. A bill
on its way to passage in Ohio would allow companies that
provide the state with drugs for lethal injections to apply for
anonymity, which would be granted for 20 years. It also
automatically covers individuals involved in the process of
executing an individual. And in Tennessee, the question of whether
the identity of lethal injection drug suppliers should be kept
confidential has
reached the Supreme Court.

As Jacob Sullum has
argued, the use of lethal injection and the concomitant issue
of drug supplies is a distraction from the issue of whether the
State ought to put people to death for any crimes. As Sullum
writes, the lethal injection serves to “sanitize” the death
penalty. Were the state to hire someone who puts bullets in the
heads of death row inmates or strings them up, acquiring bullets or
rope would not present an issue. But such methods of execution
would also reveal the brutality of the death penalty to those who
prefer not to consider it.

That states aren’t comfortable disclosing from whom they
purchase their death drugs suggests a great deal of opposition to
the death penalty, opposition that manifests not just as public
opinion but as economic and political activity. That activity’s an
important part of the process of policy making, and states
shouldn’t try to frustrate it to prevent change.