Cole County, Missouri Circuit Judge Jon Beetem ruled on March 21 that Missouri must release the names of phar­ma­cies that have pro­vid­ed lethal injec­tion drugs for exe­cu­tions. Judge Beetem ruled in favor of the ACLU of Missouri and sev­er­al media orga­ni­za­tions that had filed three sep­a­rate suits against the state. The media plain­tiffs includ­ed the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Kansas City Star, the Springfield News-Leader, Associated Press, The Guardian, and BuzzFeed reporter Chris McDaniel. Judge Beetem found that Missouri had ​“know­ing­ly vio­lat­ed the sun­shine law by refus­ing to dis­close records that would reveal the sup­pli­ers of lethal injec­tion drugs, because its refusal was based on an inter­pre­ta­tion of Missouri statutes that was clear­ly con­trary to law.” Bernard Rhodes, an attor­ney for The Guardian, said the infor­ma­tion was crit­i­cal to pub­lic over­sight: ​“Without this infor­ma­tion, the pub­lic is unable to exer­cise mean­ing­ful over­sight of the exe­cu­tions car­ried out in its name. One of the pri­ma­ry pur­pos­es of a free and inde­pen­dent press is to per­form a watch­dog func­tion over gov­ern­ment activ­i­ties, and this law­suit is a per­fect exam­ple of that.” Because it deter­mined that Missouri had know­ing­ly vio­lat­ed the law, the court also award­ed the plain­tiffs more than $100,000 in attor­neys fees. In a col­umn for the Los Angeles Times, Scott Martelle called the deci­sion, ​“a win for trans­paren­cy,” and said that com­pa­nies’ reluc­tance to par­tic­i­pate pub­licly in exe­cu­tions was evi­dence of soci­ety’s chang­ing views. “[C]apital pun­ish­ment has become so con­trary to American soci­etal norms that here in the land of the quick buck, even the busi­ness world has turned its back on the prac­tice,” he wrote. The state of Missouri has indi­cat­ed that it intends to appeal the decision.

(E. Pilkington, ​“Missouri ordered to reveal phar­ma­cies that sup­plied its exe­cu­tion drugs,” The Guardian, March 22, 2016; D. Margolies, ​“Missouri Corrections Department Violated Sunshine Law In Execution Case, Judge Rules,” St. Louis Public Radio, March 22, 2016; S. Martelle, ​“A win for trans­paren­cy in Missouri exe­cu­tion cas­es,” Los Angeles Times, March 23, 2016.) Read the judg­ment entered in Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press v. Missouri Department of Corrections here. See Lethal Injection.

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