FILE- In this Nov. 18, 1998 file photo, Kelly Gissendaner in shown in court for her murder trial in Lawrenceville, Ga. Prison officials in Georgia made a last-minute decision to delay the execution of inmate Kelly Gissendaner because the lethal drug appeared cloudy, raising questions about whether it would work. Now that decision has prompted a legal challenge to a secrecy law in Georgia that bans the government from releasing any information about where it gets its death penalty drugs. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Richard Fowlkes, File) MARIETTA DAILY OUT; GWINNETT DAILY POST OUT; LOCAL TV OUT (WXIA, WGCL, Fox 5) ATLANTA -- Prison officials in Georgia made a last-minute decision to delay the execution of inmate Kelly Gissendaner because the lethal drug appeared cloudy, raising questions about whether it would work.
Now that decision has prompted a legal challenge to a secrecy law in Georgia banning the government from releasing key information about how it exercises its ultimate power: the right to lawfully kill.
Gissendaner was sentenced to die for conspiring with a lover to murder her husband, Douglas, in 1997. The man who committed the fatal stabbing, Gregory Owen, is serving a life sentence and eligible for parole in eight years.
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Gissendaner's lawyers say the secrecy law blocks them from getting basic information about who made the drug and the firm's qualifications to produce it. They say they need that information to make sure a faulty drug won't cause Gissendaner unnecessary or gratuitous pain if she is executed.
Right now, only certain state officials know the identity of the lethal injection drug supplier. While the Department of Corrections has promised to review what happened, the state's law makes it likely many of the key findings will never be publicly presented.
A simple assurance from the government is unlikely to satisfy the defense team, which questions the state's competence. Federal agents seized Georgia's execution drugs in 2011 over concerns the supply was illegally imported. In 2011, inmate Roy Willard Blankenship jerked his head several times, mumbled inaudibly and appeared to gasp after being injected with pentobarbital. Experts were divided on whether that execution was bungled.
"There is no more serious act that a government can take than extinguishing a person's life," said Sara Totonchi, executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, which represents prisoners facing a death sentence, though not Gissendaner. "As citizens of the state, it is imperative that we know our government is acting in a way that's consistent with our values."
The request from Gissendaner flies in the face of a 2013 state law that classified as a "confidential state secret" any identifying information about people or firms that participate in an execution, including supplying or making execution drugs.
The law's author, Rep. Kevin Tanner, a Republican, said the rule ensures death penalty opponents cannot threaten drug suppliers, though he was unware of any incidents where threats were made. Equally important, Tanner said, compounding pharmacies would be unwilling to supply the drugs if their participation was public knowledge.
"As long as it's the law here in Georgia, we have an obligation to protect the safety of these third parties that we ask to assist in the process," Tanner said.
Georgia's Supreme Court has upheld the law. A majority of its judges last year rejected an appeal from condemned inmate Warren Hill, whose lawyers wanted to know the identity and history of a compounding pharmacy supplying the execution drug.
That decision prompted a stinging dissent from Justice Robert Benham. He said Hill could not raise more substantial arguments about the execution drug because he had little access to information.
"The fact that some drug providers may be subject to harassment and/or public ridicule and the fact that authorities may find it more difficult to obtain drugs for use in executions are insufficient reasons to forgo constitutional processes in favor of secrecy, especially when the state is carrying out the ultimate punishment," Benham wrote.