Ohio Republicans Aiming For Total Secrecy In Executions

Ohio Republicans push law to keep all details of executions secret

Republican lawmakers in Ohio are rushing through the most extreme secrecy bill yet attempted by a death penalty state, which would withhold information on every aspect of the execution process from the public, media and even the courts.

Legislators are trying to force through the bill, HB 663, in time for the state’s next scheduled execution, on 11 February. Were the bill on the books by then, nothing about the planned judicial killing of convicted child murderer Ronald Phillips – from the source of the drugs used to kill him and the distribution companies that transport the chemicals, to the identities of the medical experts involved in the death chamber – would be open to public scrutiny of any sort.

Unlike other death penalty states that have shrouded procedures in secrecy, the Ohio bill seeks to bar even the courts from access to essential information. Attorneys representing death-row inmates, for instance, would no longer be able to request disclosure under court protection of the identity and qualifications of medical experts who advised the state on their techniques.

“This bill is trying to do an end run around the courts. When things aren’t going well, the state is making its actions secret because they don’t want people to see them screwing up,” said Mike Brickner, senior policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Ohio.

This fits into a broader pattern. It is certainly about the effort to defend judicial killing against a growing number of critics. The efforts to spin executions by lethal injection as being somehow "user friendly" in the light of people writhing in agony for prolonged periods just don't seem to be working out. However, the notion that state actions can somehow be placed beyond the reach of judicial review is particularly alarming. One would like to assume that such a law could not possibly stand up as constitutional. However, this fits a pattern with various other right wing legislation working on the assumption that with a conservative tilt in the federal courts such things might survive court challenges with relatively minor modifications. We have repeatedly seen it with efforts to restrict access to abortion services.