A federal appeals court has refused to order Missouri to reveal the source of drugs to be used in lethal injections.
In a 7-3 decision, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis said Death Row inmates’ lawyers neglected to show more humane executions are available.
The Post Dispatch reported that the majority decision said, “If the inmates’ lawyers can’t point to a more humane execution than lethal injection, such as hanging or firing squad, they are not entitled to discover more about the pharmacy hired by Missouri to make the drugs for the injections.”
Missouri’s Department of Correction argued naming the source would make carrying out executions more difficult.
The Dispatch reported, “Lawyers for a group of inmates have argued that Missouri’s reliance on compounding pharmacies in Oklahoma to produce pentobarbital for lethal injections could violate their rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.”
“A three-member panel of the 8th Circuit had previously upheld a lower court’s decision to provide inmates’ lawyers with the identification of the Oklahoma compounding pharmacy,” the Dispatch reported. The full 8th Circuit reversed that decision.
The three judges who opposed the decision said, “Requiring condemned inmates to suggest alternative ways to die would be absurd.”
Deborah Denno, a Fordham law professor and death penalty expert, said the ruling put the lawyers for condemned Missouri inmates in a Catch-22.
