In a 5 – 2 rul­ing issued on May 19, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the state’s law that hides the source and the iden­ti­ty of the pre­par­er of drugs and equip­ment used in exe­cu­tions. The court said, ​“We con­clude that Georgia’s exe­cu­tion process is like­ly made more time­ly and order­ly by the exe­cu­tion-par­tic­i­pant con­fi­den­tial­i­ty statute.…” The rul­ing lift­ed the stay of exe­cu­tion that was in place for Warren Hill, whose lawyers chal­lenged the law. In a dis­sent, Justice Robert Benham ref­er­enced the recent botched exe­cu­tion in Oklahoma, writ­ing, ​“I fear this state is on a path that, at the very least, denies Hill and oth­er death row inmates their rights to due process and, at the very worst, leads to the macabre results that occurred in Oklahoma.” Hill’s lawyer, Brian Kammer, said the deci­sion, ​“effec­tive­ly affords the State of Georgia carte blanche to alter their lethal injec­tion pro­to­col in any way it sees fit, and to con­ceal from the pub­lic and even the courts the iden­ti­ty and prove­nance of the chem­i­cals it intends to use to car­ry out exe­cu­tions.” A sim­i­lar secre­cy law in Missouri is being chal­lenged by five news orga­ni­za­tions, who say the law vio­lates the First Amendment.

Hill’s case has also gained atten­tion because of strong evi­dence that he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and hence barred from execution.

(A. Blinder, ​“Georgia Court Upholds Block on Details of State’s Executions,” New York Times, May 19, 2014). See Lethal Injection and Botched Executions.

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