Friday, May 2, 2014

Texas plans three executions as courts mull secrecy of lethal drugs • Next execution scheduled to use drugs of secret origin • Legal battle over prison officials' secrecy nears decision

As Oklahoma continues to feel the aftershocks from its botched execution attempt on Tuesday, attention is turning to Texas, where a key secrecy ruling is expected to be made later this month.
The next US execution is scheduled for 13 May in the nation’s most-active death penalty state, where Robert Campbell is set to be given a lethal injection for the abduction and murder of Alexandra Rendon, a bank employee, in Houston in 1991.
The 41-year-old will be put to death using the sedative pentobarbital, but the source of the drug remains unknown amid a series of legal skirmishes, as in Oklahoma, over whether the state is allowed to withhold fundamental details about the deadly chemicals in its possession.
Texas has been at the heart of the execution secrecy debate in recent weeks as it has continued to execute prisoners after refusing to complywith freedom of information requests seeking to reveal the quantity and origins of its latest set of drugs.
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