By Chuck Lindell
Austin American-Statesman
Originally published Oct. 19, 2018
The Texas Supreme Court has announced that it will review a lower court decision that required prison officials to identify the pharmacy that supplied the state with execution drugs under a 2014 legal challenge.
The state’s highest civil court had rejected the case in June but reversed itself Friday — a rarely granted move that came after lawyers for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that the effort to unmask the pharmacy was an attack on the death penalty that will jeopardize the continued availability of lethal-injection drugs.
Once identified, pharmacies tend to stop providing execution drugs over fear of a backlash from death penalty opponents, Paxton’s lawyers told the Supreme Court. Oral arguments will be heard Jan. 23.