[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio [official website] on Tuesday dismissed a claim [order, PDF] filed by four death row inmates challenging the constitutionality of an Ohio law that provides confidentiality for companies that supply lethal injection drugs. The inmates claimed [complaint, PDF] that House Bill 663 [text] violated First Amendment [text] rights on freedom of speech grounds, alleging that the law decreases government transparency and obstructs the public’s right to know and engage in discourse about the controversial lethal injection policy. Judge Gregory Frost granted Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s [official website] motion to dismiss, after finding the law did not violate free speech and that the inmates lacked standing because they could not specify actual or imminent injuries to their First Amendment rights. House Bill 663 prohibits the release of identities of the pharmacies that provide and prepare the drugs used during lethal injection for at least 20 years. The law also forever keeps the identities of executioners and physicians confidential. The inmates plan to appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website].

The controversy [JURIST op-ed] surrounding the contents of lethal injection drugs and execution protocol in the US has been a mainstream issue in politics and in courts around the US in 2014, especially after the botched 26-minute long execution of Ohio inmate Dennis McGuire [JURIST report] in January of last year. The children of McGuire, a convicted murderer, filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] over the method used in McGuire’s execution, which they claim amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Earlier that month, McGuire’s attorneys filed for a stay of execution [JURIST report], claiming that the untried execution method would cause McGuire to experience a suffocation-like syndrome known as air hunger. The court refused to halt the execution [JURIST report], finding that the evidence presented failed to prove a substantial risk of severe pain.