Lawyers for Missouri death row inmate say secrecy surrounding source of pentobarbital undermines first amendment rights
A pharmacy in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is under pressure to explain its potential role in an imminent execution 400 miles away in Missouri, where a death row prisoner is due to be administered a lethal injection drug, the source of which remains shrouded in secrecy.
With seven hours hours to go before the 12.01am CST scheduled execution of Herbert Smulls in the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic & Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, his lawyers are protesting that the secrecy surrounding Missouri's source of the 10mg of pentobarbital that will be used to kill him is hampering their efforts to defend him in his final moments.
At worst, the lawyers contend, Smulls could be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment by being executed with drugs that have been only lightly regulated and have not been subjected to public scrutiny.
State authorities have tried to obscure the identity of the compounding pharmacy that supplied the drug, going to such lengths as making the name of the business, like the execution team, protected from disclosure under Missouri law. But Cheryl Pilate, one of the defence lawyers fighting for Smulls's life, has named the Apothecary Shoppe, a compounding pharmacy in Tulsa, as the source of tonight's lethal injection drug.
“We have studied publicly available documents – information that any citizen can obtain – and concluded that the Apothecary Shoppe was the source,” Pilate told the Guardian.
Lawyers acting for Smulls, 56, who was sentenced to death for the 1991 murder of a jewelry store owner Stephen Honickman, have lodged a court motion protesting that the secrecy surrounding the source of the execution drugs is a violation of the prisoner's first amendment rights as well as his right to proper legal representation.
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A pharmacy in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is under pressure to explain its potential role in an imminent execution 400 miles away in Missouri, where a death row prisoner is due to be administered a lethal injection drug, the source of which remains shrouded in secrecy.
With seven hours hours to go before the 12.01am CST scheduled execution of Herbert Smulls in the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic & Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, his lawyers are protesting that the secrecy surrounding Missouri's source of the 10mg of pentobarbital that will be used to kill him is hampering their efforts to defend him in his final moments.
At worst, the lawyers contend, Smulls could be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment by being executed with drugs that have been only lightly regulated and have not been subjected to public scrutiny.
State authorities have tried to obscure the identity of the compounding pharmacy that supplied the drug, going to such lengths as making the name of the business, like the execution team, protected from disclosure under Missouri law. But Cheryl Pilate, one of the defence lawyers fighting for Smulls's life, has named the Apothecary Shoppe, a compounding pharmacy in Tulsa, as the source of tonight's lethal injection drug.
“We have studied publicly available documents – information that any citizen can obtain – and concluded that the Apothecary Shoppe was the source,” Pilate told the Guardian.
Lawyers acting for Smulls, 56, who was sentenced to death for the 1991 murder of a jewelry store owner Stephen Honickman, have lodged a court motion protesting that the secrecy surrounding the source of the execution drugs is a violation of the prisoner's first amendment rights as well as his right to proper legal representation.
continue to read here
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