Texas execution-drug case to get look

HOUSTON — The Texas Supreme Court reversed itself Friday by granting the state’s request to review a case dealing with the disclosure of an execution-drug supplier that officials have fought for years to keep secret.

The court set oral arguments for Jan. 23 in a case that stems from a 2014 lawsuit filed by several death penalty attorneys who want to know where Texas prison officials got execution drugs used in two executions that year. A lower court ordered the state to turn over the supplier’s name, but the state appealed.

The attorneys who filed the lawsuit have said the case is ultimately about government transparency. They say the name of the supplier was needed to verify the quality of the drug and to spare condemned inmates from unconstitutional pain and suffering. Texas later implemented a law that allows the state to keep future supplier records secret.

The availability of execution drugs has become an issue in many death penalty states, including Arkansas, after traditional pharmaceutical-makers refused to sell their products to prison agencies for execution use. Similar lawsuits about drug provider identities have been argued in other capital punishment states.

“Releasing publicly the identity of any supplier of execution drugs raises serious safety concerns that real harm could come to the business operators and its employees,” said Jeremy Desel, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.