By Henry Weinstein, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
5:20 PM PST, January 6, 2008
FRANKFORT, Ky. -- The legal battle over lethal injection, which comes before the Supreme Court on Monday, has been conducted in unusual secrecy, with courts permitting states across the country to keep from lawyers and the public precisely how death row inmates are executed ...
In the Kentucky case, David Barron of the state Department of Public Advocacy, who represents death row inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr., was not allowed to question the execution team. Barron's copy of the state's written instructions for lethal injection executions was redacted. The unredacted version was submitted to the Supreme Court under seal ...
In Texas, which conducted the nation's first lethal injection execution in 1982, lawyers only recently were allowed to depose the warden in charge of death row inmates. They still have not been allowed to question any member of the execution team ...
Heather McDevitt, the attorney for Alabama death row inmate Willie McNair said that .... The state fought "tooth and nail" to stop lawyers from questioning executioners, even with an agreement to keep them anonymous ...
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-secrecy7jan07,0,3586084.story?coll=la-home-center