Death Row Prisoner: Idaho Officials Ran “Misdirection Campaign” to Withhold Info on Lethal Injection

Lawyers for an Idaho death row prisoner accused the state of failing to disclose pivotal details about its execution drugs and blocking mandated depositions Idaho prevented attorneys from obtaining information critical to death row prisoner Gerald Pizzuto Jr s legal defense his lawyers wrote in a previously unreported filing last week Discovery in the development is at this time scheduled to end next month but obstructionism and mishandling of valid discovery requests by the Idaho attorney general s office mean that Pizzuto s lawyers need more time noted the filing Pizzuto s attorneys accused Idaho administrators of unjustifiable and potentially sanctionable conduct and declared they obfuscated key information on lethal injections so as to mislead What we re seeing here is that there is a persistent pattern of obstruct and delay According to Pizzuto s filing Idaho representatives declared they were seeking death penalty drugs then asserted they couldn t obtain the necessary chemicals even though they had purchased lethal injection drugs earlier that year The state s misleading responses amounted to a misdirection campaign the filing noted Idaho responded that the state has acted diligently in discovery I think what we re seeing here is that there is a persistent pattern of obstruct and delay with the hope that the judge will get impatient and make it go away Robert Dunham the director of the Death Penalty Agenda Project informed The Intercept Pizzuto who has terminal cancer is suing the state on the grounds that his execution by lethal injection would violate the Constitution s prohibition on cruel and uncommon punishment His attorneys have expressed concerns that like other states Idaho could be attempting to conduct executions with contaminated or unsafe drugs Defendants have been stubbornly resistant to engaging with lawful discovery requests Pizzuto s lawyers wrote in a request to extended discovery The Idaho Department of Corrections declined to comment on pending litigation The attorney general s office did not respond to questions sent by The Intercept In court Idaho has depicted its resistance to disclosing information as a necessary means of protecting its drug source On Wednesday the attorney general s office filed a legal response objecting to extended discovery arguing Pizzuto s lawyers are seeking to drag out the legal process Prisoners lawyers regularly seek to obtain information about lethal injection chemicals and details about members of a state s execution band to ensure that their clients Eighth Amendment rights won t be violated The inquiries can allow defense attorneys to find out whether drugs have been stored at properly or received quality testing and determine the training levels of execution medicinal company members These efforts however have been heavily impeded say lawyers in Pizzuto s situation Prison authorities and the attorney general s office vigorously resisted providing answers to routine questions Leaders at the Idaho Department of Corrections fought basic inquiries about their lethal injection chemicals such as questions about the drugs countries of origin and testing for sterility They know that lethal injection relies on secrecy When forced to answer state bureaucrats have sometimes offered false information Previous filings noted that former Department of Corrections director Josh Tewalt misstated the expiration date of execution drugs which Pizzuto s lawyers stated prevented them further studying the chemicals The new filing from Pizzuto s organization paints an even starker picture of how Idaho has obstructed discovery accusing the state of a lengthy and persistent history of mishandling proper discovery requests We see this type of deliberate concealing and misrepresentation again and again in Idaho and other executing states Matt Wells the deputy director of human rights nonprofit Reprieve US narrated The Intercept States conceal this information from the society from people on death row from pharmaceutical companies themselves because they know that lethal injection relies on secrecy They know if its brokenness and truth emerges the inhumanity of lethal injection is laid bare Trouble Getting Drugs In Idaho carried out its the majority latest death sentence with the execution of Richard Leavitt Prison representatives obtained the drugs used in that lethal injection from an out-of-state pharmacy through a cash payment made in a Washington parking lot As the state prepared to execute Pizzuto in October his lawyers first requested that the executive produce all documents related to obtaining execution drugs The next month the state issued a death warrant but just two weeks later administrators released that they could not obtain the chemicals necessary to kill Pizzuto and would let the warrant expire Related Lethal Injection Electric Chair or Firing Squad An Inhumane Decision for Death Row Prisoners Against this backdrop state legislators took up a bill to authorize firing squad executions when lethal injection drugs were unavailable In March during a hearing on the bill Idaho Deputy Attorney General L LaMont Anderson testified that the state had not been able to obtain pentobarbital for executions The firing squad bill passed and was signed into law Unbeknownst to Pizzuto s lawyers Idaho moved to procure execution drugs just days after Anderson s testimony The state generated a purchase order for the lethal injection chemicals and in April spent on the drugs according to last week s legal filing That information would only become apparent earlier this year after a protracted dispute in court over releasing the information For years states around the country have struggled to obtain pentobarbital made by major pharmaceutical manufacturers who have taken measures to ensure their drugs don t get used for lethal injection As discovery progressed in Pizzuto s attorneys worked under the impression that Idaho would be seeking execution drugs made by a compounding pharmacy businesses that produce custom-made products by combining or otherwise manipulating raw pharmaceutical ingredients Idaho executives left open the possibility that it could obtain compounded drugs In September Tewalt and a deputy attorney general wrote in a court filing that they were attempting to acquire any chemical that would be permissible according to the state s execution protocol The next month the attorney general s office explained in a filing that the Idaho Department of Correction does not have the present ability to carry out an execution via lethal injection or firing squad Related Chilling Testimony in a Tennessee Trial Exposes Lethal Injection as Court-Sanctioned Torture Just two days later the warden of the state s death penalty facility obtained grams of pentobarbital in an exchange that took place outside the prison gates Pizzuto s lawyers would later learn that the state had obtained pentobarbital manufactured by a pharmaceutical company not a compounder In short the defendants effectively spent seven months obligating Mr Pizzuto and the Court to expend time and guidance delving into imaginary discovery disputes about compounded drugs Pizzuto s lawyers wrote in last week s filing During that time the Idaho Attorney General s Office AG which represents the defendants here went out of its way to foster the impression that IDOC lacked a drug source On October the same day Idaho received the drugs it paid for the state issued a warrant to execute Thomas Creech who had been on death row since Still under the impression that the state could not have obtained manufactured pentobarbital defense lawyers alleged that using compounded drugs would violate Creech s Eight Amendment rights The court deemed these concerns irrelevant in light of having obtained the manufactured drug and denied Creech s request for a stay of execution In February Creech s execution proceeded but was called off after eight failed attempts to place an IV line to deliver lethal injection drugs Unlike Creech the restraints on Pizzuto s discovery are not dictated by a looming execution There is no developing death warrant and all the pentobarbital Idaho has obtained since is now expired That allows his lawyers to pursue legal challenges to Idaho s obstruction over a more extended time period if Pizzuto survives his illness Obstruction as Tactic In the months since Creech s attempted execution Idaho has continued withholding information from Pizzuto s lawyers even escalating discovery disputes to the th U S Circuit Court of Appeals In filings Idaho justifies its refusal to disclose information by citing a secrecy statute that protects the disclosure of information about businesses and people involved in supplying manufacturing and dispensing execution drugs The tactic is art of a broader national pattern At least states have passed similar secrecy statutes since The more secretive the process the more likely it is that there will be a botched execution These laws inhibit meaningful oversight announced Robin Maher the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center We know that from the material the more secretive the process the more likely it is that there will be a botched execution because the right questions cannot be questioned and answered before Maher reported In court attorneys general try to wield these secrecy laws as a panacea against all manner of disclosures Bulk commonly though states attempt to block defense attorneys from gaining information that could stop an execution We ve seen in a lot of other states obstruction and using the artificial limits created by death warrants as a way of trying to force the courts to move the situation along And then strategically using the fact that they ve been able to obstruct discovery as a way of saying that the defense hasn t come forward with facts to justify stopping the execution declared Dunham of the Death Penalty Initiative Project It raises serious questions about whether the justice system is willing to do justice The post Death Row Prisoner Idaho Personnel Ran Misdirection Campaign to Withhold Info on Lethal Injection appeared first on The Intercept