Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips denied the Missouri Department of Corrections motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri. The ACLU’s lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of a state statute that prohibits identifying any current or former member of the execution team without permission from the Missouri Department of Correction’s director.
“When MODOC changed its execution protocol to redefine the execution team to include suppliers of execution drugs as members of the execution team, the ACLU promptly removed website documents that we had obtained through a Sunshine Law request, because the documents had contained the names of drug suppliers,” said Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Missouri. “We did not want to risk violating any statutes."
“Since we filed this lawsuit, five people have been killed by the state of Missouri in a procedure that has been shrouded in secrecy,” said Jeffrey A. Mittman, the ACLU of Missouri’s executive director. “Decisions by the Department of Corrections about how to execute must be transparent and open to debate. This secrecy is an effort to avoid public scrutiny.”
