More than 12,000 pages of California prison doc­u­ments dis­closed by court order on May 7 reveal prob­lem­at­ic con­duct by state offi­cials and the extra­or­di­nar­i­ly high price tag the state would have paid for lethal injec­tion drugs if it were car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which obtained the doc­u­ments after a six-month legal bat­tle, say they show that the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation (CDCR) sig­nif­i­cant­ly under­stat­ed drug costs, advo­cat­ed vio­lat­ing fed­er­al law in attempt­ing to acquire exe­cu­tion drugs, con­sid­ered obtain­ing exe­cu­tion drugs from ques­tion­able sources, and down­played the seri­ous­ness of botched exe­cu­tions in oth­er states and the prospects that botch­es could occur in California. The ACLU request­ed the doc­u­ments under the California Public Records Act, say­ing they were cru­cial to informed pub­lic com­ment on California’s recent­ly-pro­posed one-drug exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. Among the infor­ma­tion revealed in the records were wild­ly incon­sis­tent esti­mates of the cost of obtain­ing pen­to­bar­bi­tal — one of four pro­posed lethal injec­tion drugs. CDCR ini­tial­ly esti­mat­ed drug costs at $4,193 per exe­cu­tion. Emails indi­cate that a com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy agreed in May 2014 to pro­vide 200 grams of the drug to the state for an ini­tial cost of $500,000, but only if the com­pa­ny’s name was kept secret. A sec­ond source quot­ed a price of $1,109 for 500 mil­ligrams of pen­to­bar­bi­tal. The emails state that 324 grams would be required to exe­cute the 18 inmates who have exhaust­ed their appeals, for a total cost of $718,632, plus unspec­i­fied fees to cov­er ​“ser­vice costs.” The pro­posed pro­to­col, how­ev­er, calls for 60 grams: ​“Estimated chem­i­cal costs are based on a total of 60 grams. This includes the 37.5 grams required by the reg­u­la­tions for car­ry­ing out the exe­cu­tion plus 22.5 grams used dur­ing train­ing.” Based on the price quotes from the emails, 60 grams of pen­to­bar­bi­tal would cost between $133,080 and $150,000, bring­ing the cost of 18 exe­cu­tions to $1.06-$1.20 million. 

The doc­u­ments also show that CDCR con­sid­ered obtain­ing the drugs from for­eign sources, despite FDA action block­ing oth­er states from import­ing exe­cu­tion drugs because such imports vio­late federal law.

(M. Dolan, ​“ACLU wins access to 12,000 pages of inter­nal prison doc­u­ments on California’s plans for lethal injec­tion,” Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2016; M. Dolan, ​“The drugs to exe­cute crim­i­nals could cost hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars, California prison agency records show,” Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2016; L. Lye and A. Zamora, ​“Our Fears Confirmed: Proposed Lethal Injection Regulations Fraught with Deep and Troubling Flaws,” ACLU of Northern California blog, May 10, 2016.) See Lethal Injection and Costs. The released doc­u­ments can be accessed here. Read California’s pro­posed lethal injec­tion pro­to­col here.

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