On June 4, a fed­er­al mag­is­trate ruled that the Louisiana Department of Safety and Corrections must reveal the details of the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. The rul­ing reject­ed the argu­ment that dis­clos­ing the pro­to­col would raise ​“seri­ous secu­ri­ty con­cerns.” The rul­ing by Judge Stephen Riedlinger was on a motion relat­ed to the law­suit filed by death row inmates Jessie Hoffman and Christopher Sepulvado, who con­tend­ed that due process requires they be ful­ly informed about the state’s exe­cu­tion process. Michael Rubenstein, defense attor­ney for Hoffman and Sepulvado, not­ed that, ​“Not only are lethal injec­tion pro­to­cols wide­ly avail­able in oth­er states, the courts have reject­ed the very argu­ment that the Defendants seek to advance.” Texas and Mississippi, for exam­ple, have pub­licly dis­closed their lethal injec­tion pro­to­cols. In Texas, the pro­to­col includes spe­cif­ic loca­tion of the inmate, the tim­ing of the inmate’s trans­port to the loca­tion of the exe­cu­tion, and oth­er infor­ma­tion. The Department of Safety and Corrections now has 14 days to pro­vide Hoffman and Sepulvado’s defense attor­neys with the lethal injection protocol.

(D. Hasselle, ​“State must reveal details of death-penal­ty prac­tices, fed­er­al mag­is­trate rules,” The Lens, June 6, 2013). See Lethal Injection.

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