Court: Missouri may keep execution-drug provider secret

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Missouri can keep the supplier of its lethal-injection drugs secret, a federal appellate court ruled Thursday, reversing its own ruling earlier that the supplier must be revealed.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis overruled a Sept. 2 ruling by the same judges that the state must disclose its pentobarbital supplier to two Mississippi death-row inmates suing for the information.

At that time, the panel rejected as "inherently speculative" Missouri's claim revealing how it gets the powerful sedative could crimp its ability to obtain such chemicals for future executions.

But the 8th Circuit granted Missouri a rehearing and Thursday found the state -- and more notably, the drug's supplier, identified in court filings only by the pseudonym "M7" -- made a more persuasive case than in previous arguments.

The supplier insisted in court filings since the Sept. 2 ruling it no longer would provide pentobarbital to Missouri or any other state if its anonymity vanishes, ultimately swaying the 8th Circuit to side Thursday with Missouri.

M7 would not do business with Mississippi if its identity were public, the court found, so the suing inmates don't need the supplier's name.

Condemned Mississippi inmates Richard Jordan and Ricky Chase subpoenaed the Missouri details as part of their federal challenge of Mississippi's three-drug execution protocol, which they describe as torturous and unconstitutionally cruel.

Arguing Mississippi should consider adopting a one-drug execution method, as Missouri, Texas and Georgia have done, the inmates have sued those states for specifics about their execution drugs.