USA - Missouri. Missouri ordered to reveal pharmacies

Missouri ordered to reveal pharmacies that supplied its execution drugs. Cole County Judge Jon Beetem ruled that pharmacies are not part of execution team and thus not afforded protection from identification. The Missouri department of corrections has been ordered to release the names of the two pharmacies from which it bought pentobarbital used in executions, dealing a significant blow to the shroud of secrecy that has been thrown around the death penalty in the state and beyond. For the past 2 years a group of media outlets has argued in the Missouri courts that under the state's own freedom of information laws, the department of corrections was obliged to disclose the source of its lethal injection drugs. The Guardian, joined by the Associated Press and 3 prominent local news organizations - the Kansas City Star, the St Louis Post-Dispatch and the Springfield News-Leader - held that it was in the public interest that citizens were aware of how the ultimate punishment was being wielded in their name. Judge Beetem ordered the prisons service to hand over all relevant documents, though he stayed that requirement pending appeal. Missouri has indicated that it will do so. (See also July 17, 2015).