Limits on info about death penalty drugs challanged during trial
By Bill Kelly 
, Senior Reporter/Producer Nebraska Public Media
May 14, 2018, 9:10 a.m. ·
A district court judge will decide if the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (NDCS) withheld too much information about the drugs it intends to use for lethal injection executions and the process it uses to make the purchase.
Prison officials insist it does so for the safety of prison employees.
Omaha World-Herald reporter Joe Duggan swears in to testify.
Flanked by lawyers from the Attorney General's office, JoAnne Young of the Lincoln Journal Star testifies.
Corrections Director Scott Frakes answers questions from attorneys representing the ACLU and the newspapers. (Photos: Bill Kelly/NET News)
During a brief trial Monday afternoon Lancaster County District Judge Jodi Nelson heard arguments the director of the state’s prison system violated the state’s open records law by failing to turn over documents requested by the Nebraska Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the state’s two largest newspapers. All three filed separate lawsuits after having open records requests denied by director Scott Frakes.
Documents requested included purchase orders and invoices from the still unknown supplier of the pharmaceuticals. Letters and emails between the supplier and the department, chemical analysis testing, contacts with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and photos of the drug containers were also requested last year. Corrections refused the bulk of the requests.
During testimony, it was acknowledged similar requests had been granted prior to 2017 by NDCS and former Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning. Last year Frakes began routinely denying such requests.
The ACLU, Omaha World Herald and Lincoln Journal Star argued state government, byway of the open records law. has an obligation to disclose the costs and suppliers of the drugs.
The Nebraska Attorney General, representing the Department of Corrections, claimed revealing the supplier of the drugs risks identifying members of execution team, even if their names and related information is stricken from public copies. State law was recently changed to forbid disclosure of the names of those carrying out the capital sentence.
Attorney Ryan Post also told the court information in the records would likely be used by opponents as a “backdoor effort” to obstruct the death penalty in Nebraska.
Judge Nelson will consider both the state’s request the case be dismissed as being without merit and, if electing to proceeding, rule as to whether the government records should be released to the public, by way of the organizations who made the original open records request.