USA - Louisiana. Louisiana must produce more info on lethal injection process ahead of Feb. 5 execution.

Louisiana must produce more info on lethal injection process ahead of Feb. 5 execution, judge rules. Exactly 2 weeks before Louisiana is scheduled to perform its 1st execution in more than 4 years, a federal magistrate judge has sided with 2 Angola death row inmates, ordering correctional officials to release more information regarding the state's lethal injection protocol. The debate comes as multiple other states question the safety of new and untested lethal injection drugs following last week's botched execution in Ohio. On Jan. 13, U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Riedlinger ruled Louisiana officials had to release additional information regarding the planned Feb. 5 execution of  Christopher Sepulvado. The deadline for the state to release this information, including the type and origin of what drug will be used in the lethal injection, was set for Friday Jan. 24. Information regarding Louisiana's execution protocol was unavailable to the public and convicted criminals before June 2013, when Riedlinger ordered state officials to make the process more transparent. The nearly 60-page protocol, released on June 17, was first publicly posted by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on June 28. But lawyers for Sepulvado and fellow death row inmate Jessie Hoffman called the protocol "woefully inadequate." The document confirmed the state planned to shift from a 3-drug cocktail to a single dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital, but it lacked details about how the drug would be stored, overseen and administered and by whom. Additional questions were raised this month after Ohio correctional officials administered an untested, 3-drug cocktail during the execution of convicted killer Dennis McGuire. Sepulvado was convicted of the 1992 murder of his 6-year-old stepson Wesley Allen Mercer.