A federal appeals court on Wednesday threw out a ruling requiring the Texas prison system to disclose more information about where it gets lethal-injection drugs, reversing a judge who had halted an upcoming execution.

Only hours before the appellate decision, a lower-court judge issued a temporary injunction halting the execution of Tommy Lynn Sells, a convicted serial killer who was set to die Thursday.

The case originally included Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas, another inmate scheduled to be put to death next week. But the appellate ruling affected only Sells. The appeals court said it would take up Hernandez-Llanas' case at a later date.

The case now is likely headed to the US supreme court.

District judge Vanessa Gilmore had issued a temporary injunction on Wednesday ordering Texas to provide the lawyers representing Sells and Hernandez-Llanas with information about the supplier and quality of a new batch of pentobarbital, a barbiturate that is to be used in the lethal injections.

Sells was scheduled to die in the Texas state penitentiary on Thursday, and Hernandez-Llanas six days later. Texas's previous supply of compounded pentobarbital expired on 1 April, and the state has repeatedly refused to reveal the source of its new drugs, claiming that secrecy is needed in order to protect suppliers from threats of violence and intimidation.

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Source: The Guardian, April 3, 2014

Supreme Court to decide Texas execution drug case

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court will be asked to halt Thursday's execution of a Texas serial killer whose attorneys are challenging the state's refusal to release information about where it gets its lethal injection drug.

Lawyers for Tommy Lynn Sells are making the last-minute plea after a federal appeals court allowed the execution to stay on schedule. A lower court had stayed the execution Wednesday, ordering Texas to reveal more information about its drug supplier, but the ruling was quickly tossed on appeal.

Sells, who was sentenced to death for fatally stabbing a 13-year-old South Texas girl in 1999, claims to have committed as many as 70 killings across the U.S. The 49-year-old is scheduled to be lethally injected Thursday evening in Huntsville.

Sell's attorneys argue that they need to know the name of the company now providing the state with pentobarbital, the drug used during executions, in order to verify the drug's quality and protect Sells from unconstitutional pain and suffering.

But 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Texas prison officials, who argued that information about the drug supplier must be kept secret to protect the company from threats of violence. It also found that the stock of the pentobarbital, a powerful sedative, falls within the acceptable ranges of potency.

The court said that had Texas wanted to use a drug never used before for executions or a completely new drug whose efficiency or science was unknown, "the case might be different."

It's unclear how the Supreme Court would rule. Last month it rejected similar arguments from a Missouri inmate's attorneys who challenged the secrecy surrounding where that state obtained its execution drugs, and the condemned prisoner was put to death.

Questions about the source of execution drugs have arisen in several states in recent months as numerous drugmakers — particularly in Europe, where opposition to capital punishment is strongest — have refused to sell their products if they will be used in executions.

That's led several state prison systems to compounding pharmacies, which are not as heavily regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as more conventional pharmacies.

A batch of pentobarbital that Texas purchased from a compounding pharmacy in suburban Houston expired at the end of March. The pharmacy refused to sell the state any more drugs, citing threats it received after its name was made public.

That led Texas to its new, undisclosed suppler.

The court case challenging the state's stance also included 44-year-old Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas, who is scheduled for execution next week. But the 5th Circuit ruling affected only Sells.

Maurie Levin, an attorney for the inmates, said Sells' case would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Levin said the lower court ruling, which had ordered the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to give defense attorneys details about the drug supplier and how the drug was tested, "honors the importance of transparency in the execution process."

If Sells' execution is carried out Thursday, it would be the fifth lethal injection this year in Texas, the nation's busiest death-penalty state.

Source: AP, April 3, 2014