FILE - In this Sept. 21, 2011 file photo, a corrections officer keeps watch outside the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas. A two-year dispute about execution drugs in the nation's most active death penalty state is returning to court as Texas seeks to keep secret the identity of whoever provided its drugs for lethal injections before a law last year clamped a firm lid on any supplier's name. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File) (The Associated Press)
HUNTSVILLE, Texas – More than a year after a judge ordered Texas to divulge the source of its execution drugs, the information hasn't been released and legislators passed a state law protecting the prison agency from doing so.
The lengthy appeal to the lawsuit challenging whether the provider should remain secret finally is to be heard, with oral arguments set for Wednesday before an appeals court in Austin.
State attorneys are appealing a lower court order saying Texas didn't adequately show violence was likely if the execution drug supplier was disclosed. The security issue is a provision in the Texas Public Information Act.
The suit outcome would affect only the supplier from April 2014, when inmate's lawyers unsuccessfully tried to stop two executions, until last Sept. 1, when the secrecy law took effect.
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