TO YOUR GRAVE

Shady ‘Injection Secrecy’ Law Criticized

Late challenge to Georgia execution.

As if the execution of a cognitively disabled person wasn’t bad enough, the state of Georgia is fighting not only for its right to execute Warren Lee Hill, a man whom medical professionals have diagnosed as “mentally retarded,” but also to keep the details of the lethal injections a secret. The Southern state’s “Lethal Injection Secrecy Act,” passed last March, makes the source of the deadly doses, as well as the prison staff involved in executions, a state secret. A judge yesterday issued a stay for Hill through at least Thursday, after his lawyers argued the law violates Hill’s Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment. Without information on the source of the pentobarbital (the drugs for his lethal injection), lawyers said Hill can’t know whether they “will reliably perform their function, or if they are tainted, counterfeited, expired, or compromised in some other way.”