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 "Oklahoma 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 "intense pressure" to stop.
As proof of their claim, Oklahomaâs 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, "stating Woodlands pharmacy supplied execution drugs to Oklahoma would be âan 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 "would 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.