The Arkansas Supreme Court has again blocked a lower court order in a Freedom of Information Act case seeking product labels for drugs used by the state to put people to death.
Steve Shults, a Little Rock lawyer, has now twice won FOI suits in
Different judges have found that the legislature — in attempting to put a shroud of secrecy over executions — failed to enact specific language about drug labels. These labels can be used, the state argued, to identify those who provided the drugs. They contend publicity about this can make it hard to obtain killing drugs.
No executions are currently scheduled. Correction: An execution is scheduled in November. New supplies of drugs were needed to resume executions because previous supplies had expired.
The Supreme Court’s ruling came in a brief unsigned order. It said Chief Justice John Dan Kemp would have denied Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s request for a stay of the lower court order. Without the stay, the state would have had to turn over product information inserted in drug packets by tomorrow.
