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New Report: Oklahoma Misleads the Supreme Court

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What drove Oklahoma to use the controversial drug midazolam in lethal injection executions?

That was a key point of debate two weeks ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Glossip v. Gross, a case addressing whether the drug midazolam--a drug implicated in several botched executions last year--is constitutional.

One of Oklahoma's arguments, echoed by Justices Alito and Scalia during oral argument, has been that anti-death penalty activists have made other drugs unavailable. As supposed proof of this, Oklahoma presented in its brief a letter about a compounding pharmacy refusing to provide to the state pentobarbital it had previously provided.

But a new report by BuzzFeed calls the veracity of this evidence into question.

In an investigation released today, BuzzFeed reporter Chris McDaniel finds that "€œOklahoma heavily redacted a letter that was sent to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice --” but told the high court that it was actually sent to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections."

From the report:
 

In Oklahoma'€™s brief, they state that the source of pentobarbital stopped supplying the drug to the state because the source faced "€œintense pressure"€ to stop.
As proof of their claim, Oklahoma’s lawyers presented a heavily redacted letter they claim was sent to "ODOC"--the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

But according to the pharmacy that wrote that letter, that never happened.


In a statement to Buzzfeed, the compounding pharmacy flat-out denies ever providing execution drugs to Oklahoma, and says, "€œstating Woodlands pharmacy supplied execution drugs to Oklahoma would be ‘an act of libel and/or slander."€

Here'€™s where the letter actually comes from:
 

The Woodlands letter was actually sent to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice; an unredacted version of the letter was filed in federal court in Arizona in a lawsuit challenging that state'€™s execution protocol. In that letter, Woodlands asks Texas to return pentobarbital that it sent, saying it had believed their relationship "€œwould be kept on the '€˜down low.'"€

Will Glossip play out differently now we know that one of the state's key arguments was supported by a gross misrepresentation of its evidence? We'€™ll see when the Court issues its decision in June.

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