Legislation to add new secrecy provisions to Arkansas' Method of Execution Act on Tuesday cleared its final committee hurdle, earning the endorsement of the House Judiciary Committee en route to the House floor.
The bill, crafted by Republican sponsors working with Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office, would allow the Arkansas Department of Correction to keep secret any records that could lead to the identification of the manufacturers of the drugs that the state uses in lethal injections.
A criminal defense attorney who has specialized in representing death row clients said that lawmakers' latest attempt to clear the way for more executions is "blatantly unconstitutional."
Death penalty opponents and a representative of the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock also spoke against Senate Bill 464, which proposes to shield nearly all records related to Arkansas' supply of lethal injection drugs.
They argued for more transparency surrounding the process of putting prisoners to death.
Current law allows prison officials to redact those records to hide the immediate source of the drugs. However, pharmaceutical companies opposed to their products being used in executions have in recent years have accused the Department of Correction of skirting company safeguards in order to purchase the drugs from middlemen suppliers. After one drug company said it would crack down on its supply chain in 2017, the Department of Correction has maintained that it has been unable to purchase new drugs, in effect halting executions.
[RELATED: Complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of the Arkansas Legislature]
"Death penalty opponents have engaged in what I would call nefarious tactics at this time in their attempt to try and stop the use of the death penalty," said Rep. John Maddox, R-Mena, the House sponsor of SB464.
Maddox said those tactics included "harassing" pharmaceutical companies into opposing the death penalty.
At least one drug company, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, sent letters to House leadership ahead of Tuesday's committee meeting, asking lawmakers to oppose SB464.
No representatives of Hikma, based in London, or any other pharmaceutical companies spoke at the meeting.
Jeff Rosenzweig, the criminal defense attorney, said a court would likely overturn provisions of SB464 that make it a felony to "recklessly disclose" records that could identify manufacturers. Rosenzweig noted that in the past, some companies have revealed themselves to be the manufacturers of the state's execution drugs in court filings, as part of attempts to get the drugs back from the state.
Such a filing in a lawsuit would be a felony under SB464, stifling those companies' First Amendment rights to petition the government, he said.
Maddox, the sponsor of the bill, said Rosenzweig and other attorneys representing death row inmates would challenge the constitutionality of the state's Method of Execution Act no matter what the Legislature does this session to amend the law.
Both Rutledge and Gov. Asa Hutchinson have stated that they support the bill as part of an overall effort to resume executions in Arkansas for the first time since 2017.
The Department of Correction, which is tasked with acquiring lethal injection drugs and carrying out executions, has not taken an official stance on the bill, a spokesman said Tuesday.
A Section on 04/03/2019