Sixth Circuit allows lethal injection drug makers to remain anonymous News
Sixth Circuit allows lethal injection drug makers to remain anonymous

The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] on Friday ruled [opinion, PDF] that manufacturers of drugs used for lethal injections may remain anonymous in Ohio. The lawsuit, Fears v. Kasich, was brought by death row inmates who claimed that barring discovery that would lead to the identity of such manufacturers unlawfully prevented prosecution against those who administer lethal injections in the state, including Ohio Governor John Kasich [official website]. The inmates claimed that a protective order barring such discovery allowed for “unknown laboratories using unknown testing protocols to evaluate drugs manufactured or compounded by an anonymous source,” thereby preventing a demonstration of potential harm caused by the use of such drugs. In a 2-1 decision, the justices disagreed and affirmed the lower court’s ruling that the state’s interest in protecting the drug manufacturers from anti-death penalty-related violence outweighed the inmates’ concerns. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Jane Stranch noted that the evidence that such a threat existed was limited to a single email sent to a pharmacy from an anti-death penalty advocate in Oklahoma.

Capital punishment [JURIST op-ed] remains a controversial issue in the US and worldwide. In November the legal status of the death penalty was upheld [JURIST report] by state referendum in Oklahoma, Nebraska and California. In September executions in Oklahoma were put on a two-year hiatus so Oklahoma can reevaluate its lethal injection procedures [JURIST report] following a botched execution and several drug mix-ups in the past two years. In May the US Supreme Court upheld a stay [JURIST report] of execution for Alabama inmate Vernon Madison. A few days before that a Miami judge ruled [JURIST report] that Florida’s revamped death penalty law is unconstitutional because it does not require a unanimous agreement among jurors to approve executions. In April Virginia’s General Assembly voted [JURIST report] to keep secret the identities of suppliers of lethal injection drugs.

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