On March 26, Oklahoma County District Judge Patricia Parrish held that the state’s lethal injec­tion secre­cy law vio­lates the con­sti­tu­tion­al right to due process of inmates slat­ed for exe­cu­tion. ​“I think that the secre­cy statute is a vio­la­tion of due process because access to the courts has been denied,” she said, say­ing the case was not ​“even a close call.” Death row inmates Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner chal­lenged the law, which bans any­one from dis­clos­ing the source of the state’s exe­cu­tion drugs, even in court. Attorneys for Lockett and Warner called the deci­sion ​“an impor­tant step towards greater trans­paren­cy and account­abil­i­ty in Oklahoma’s exe­cu­tion sys­tem” and expressed hope ​“that no exe­cu­tion will go for­ward until the state reveals full infor­ma­tion about the source of its exe­cu­tion drugs, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of the new, con­tro­ver­sial pro­to­col it unveiled last week.…”

Recently, the exe­cu­tion dates for Lockett and Warner were moved from March to April because of uncer­tain­ty about procur­ing the necessary drugs.

(B. E. McBride, ​“Oklahoma Judge Tosses State Execution Law,” Associated Press, March 26, 2014). See Lethal Injection.

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