ACLU sues to lift secrecy over Missouri execution team

After a Post-Dispatch investigation seven years ago revealed the identity of Missouri’s lead executioner, exposing a history including public discipline from the state medical board and false statements in court, the Legislature took action.

It enacted a law to ban any person from “knowingly disclosing the identity of a current or former member of an execution team.’’

The Department of Corrections announced on Tuesday it was adding a compounding pharmacy to the execution team and invoked the 2007 law protecting the pharmacy’s workers from disclosure.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri sued in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to try to overturn the law so “we can post documents that identify execution team members on our website without fear of violating any statutes,” said its legal director, Tony Rothert. Under the law, an executioner whose identity was revealed could file a lawsuit and recover actual and punitive damages from the person who revealed the name.

Missouri has long struggled to find executioners and execution drugs with spotless histories. Most medical professionals and drug companies avoid being associated with taking lives.

ACLU sued the state this month for records of the state’s inventory of propofol, an anesthetic the state had planned to use in lethal injections to execute murderers Allen Nicklasson on Oct. 23 and Joseph Paul Franklin on Nov. 20.

The records showed the supplier of some of the propofol, Morris & Dickson, of Shreveport, La., had pleaded with the state nearly a year ago to return vials the company had shipped to Missouri in violation of its agreement with the manufacturer, Fresenius Kabi, of Germany, not to provide the drug for capital punishment.

The state finally returned the drug after the ACLU put the records on its web site. But it still had propofol manufactured by Hospira in stock from another supplier, Mercer Medical of suburban Seattle.

Then Hospira said it wanted its propofol back, too, because it had not authorized the sale to Mercer Medical. On Oct. 11, Gov. Jay Nixon postponed the Nicklasson execution and ordered the department to develop a new protocol. On Tuesday, the state announced it would use pentobarbital, commonly used to euthanize pets.

Source: St Louis Post-Dispatch, October 24, 2013

Texas | Jury recommends death penalty for man convicted of killing San Benito police lieutenant

A Cameron County jury recommended the death penalty for Rogelio Martinez for killing a San Benito police lieutenant during a police chase in Brownsville. Martinez stared forward as the judge announced the recommendation. Lt. Milton Resendez's family told Martinez in court that their lives will never be the same. Resendez's wife and siblings walked past cameras and declined to speak with reporters. Inside the courtroom, where no audio or video recording was allowed, Resendez's sister Jackie raised her voice at Martinez during impact statements.

Alabama | Brian Martin sentenced to death in killing of Sheffield Sgt. Nick Risner

Brian Lansing Martin was sentenced to death Monday for killing Sheffield Police Sgt. Nick Risner, whose death prompted Alabama lawmakers to restrict early-release credits for inmates convicted of killing someone with a deadly weapon. A Colbert County judge formally imposed the sentence Oct. 26, following a jury’s unanimous recommendation in September, WAFF reported. “Today’s sentence represents justice and accountability for the murder of Sergeant Nick Risner,” Colbert County District Attorney Hal Hughston said in a statement quoted by the station.

Florida | Bunnell man sentenced to death for fatally stabbing wife outside their home in 2024

A Flagler County judge sentenced Jermaine Mandell Williams Sr. to death Monday for stabbing his wife outside their Bunnell home in 2024. Williams, 34, was convicted of 1st-degree murder in July. Jurors deliberated about 20 minutes before finding him guilty and later voted 11-1 to recommend the death penalty. The attack happened Aug. 2, 2024. Surveillance video and testimony showed Williams went inside the home, returned with an 8-inch chef’s knife and attacked his wife, Yolonda Charmaine Williams, in the street, according to court and prosecution accounts. She was stabbed 19 to 20 times and later died at a hospital.

Indiana governor rejects brain scans for death row inmate ahead of execution

Gov. Mike Braun is still weighing Jeffrey Weisheit’s clemency request, however. Gov. Mike Braun’s administration will not allow death row inmate Jeffrey Weisheit to undergo additional brain scans before his scheduled execution next week. The decision follows weeks of legal efforts by his attorneys to obtain additional medical evidence for his clemency case. Braun’s general counsel, Stephanie Flittner, met with Weisheit’s legal team Wednesday to discuss the testing and his pending clemency request.

‘I’m Not Incompetent’ Christa Pike’s execution doctor, Mark Fowler, speaks.

Dr. Mark Fowler knew something was wrong after 45 minutes passed without word from the warden. In most cases, executions take no more than ten minutes. When he was summoned from his waiting room to the chamber next door, he saw 50-year-old Christa Pike, who’d received two lethal doses of pentobarbital that night, strapped to a gurney, gasping for air. “She’s not dead,” Fowler recalls the warden saying. “I thought, Well, in human beings there’s a spectrum of responses to medications and we’ll give it a few more minutes,” he says. Another half-hour passed. Fowler worried she might survive with irreversible brain damage. “She’s going to be in a permanent vegetative state with a quarter-million dollars in medical expenses.” He came back in and diagnosed her as comatose. The deputy commissioner ordered the execution to stop. Now, instead of taking part in Pike’s death, Fowler’s job was to bring her back to life.

François Mitterrand, the Justice Minister Who Sent 45 Men to the Guillotine

The socialist president celebrated for abolishing the death penalty in France sent 45 condemned men to the guillotine when he was Minister of Justice. In French political history, François Mitterrand is the father of the historic victory of May 1981. He remains associated with one of the greatest moral laws of the Fifth Republic: the definitive end of capital executions, carried through with Robert Badinter in the autumn of 1981.

Indiana Parole Board hears testimony on clemency for man scheduled for Nov. 5 execution

Jeffrey Weisheit set his house on fire in 2010, killing his girlfriend’s two young children he was watching. The Indiana Parole Board will now make a recommendation in the coming days to Governor Mike Braun on whether to grant clemency to condemned killer Jeffrey Weisheit. Jeffrey is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 5 for the 2010 murder of his girlfriend's 2 children in Vanderburgh County.

Medical experts shocked by Tennessee team’s ‘malpractice’ in Christa Pike’s failed execution

New details of IV team’s attempts to find a vein shared by Pike’s lawyer ‘shocked and disturbed’ practitioners Medical experts have expressed shock at the apparent incompetence shown by Tennessee’s execution team during the failed lethal injection of Christa Pike , the prisoner who survived a normally fatal dose of pentobarbital, which they say would be considered medical malpractice in any other setting.

Saudi Arabia executes woman, 'terrorists', 'indecent' couple, and juvenile offenders

Saudi Arabia carried out a series of executions in mid-October, including that of a woman convicted of killing her mother and attempting to kill her sister, alongside five men in the Eastern Province. Official statements described the five as terrorists; human rights groups described them as political prisoners sentenced under discretionary (ta’zir) penalties, one of whom was a child at the time of the alleged acts. The cases illustrate the kingdom’s continued use of the death penalty under Sharia, its stated commitment to public order and justice, and criticism from human rights organizations over the scope of capital punishment.

Iran | Executions in Karaj, Sabzevar, Mashhad, Rasht, Kashan, Shahrekord

Iranian authorities have executed two prisoners, Amrollah Seiri and Reza Talebi, in Karaj and Sabzevar Central Prisons. Both were sentenced to death for “premeditated murder,” with Seiri spending 14 years in prison before his execution. According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Seiri (Hadavandi), a Lor man from Farunabad in Pakdasht County, Tehran Province, was executed in Karaj Central Prison on Wednesday morning, October 28, 2026.

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