By Ruth Brown, Idaho Reports
Idaho U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill issued an order Thursday that will require the Idaho Department of Correction to disclose some additional information regarding the chemicals it planned to use in the execution of Gerald Pizzuto Jr.
The order comes following the failed execution of Thomas Creech in February. The source of the chemicals that were set to be used in that execution is still unknown.
Pizzuto filed a lawsuit against IDOC in 2021, asking the state not to execute him with pentobarbital, due to his multiple medical conditions. He claimed it would cause severe pain and constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
His execution has been stayed since March 9, 2023, while litigation continues.
Pizzuto has been on Idaho’s death row since being convicted in the 1985 deaths of Berta Herndon and her nephew Delbert Herndon outside of McCall. His two co-defendants, William Odom and James Rice, were given lesser sentences for their roles in the crime.
The Idaho Legislature in 2022 passed a law to grant anonymity to the manufacturers of chemicals the state procured for lethal injection executions. At the time, IDOC told legislators they were having trouble obtaining the chemicals.
While IDOC will not be required to name the supplier, some additional information requested by Pizzuto’s attorneys will be supplied.
Winmill agreed to grant Pizzuto’s request that IDOC disclose the date on which the execution drugs were obtained and supply a purchase order with a date to Pizzuto. The judge also agreed to grant Pizzuto’s request asking about the geographic origin of the execution chemicals and whether they were obtained in the United States or a foreign country and if the chemicals were imported.
“Ultimately, the Court is left with very little information about the likelihood that answering these RFAs would result in the identification of the drug supplier,” Winmill wrote.
Pizzuto also requested information on if the chemicals came from a “veterinary source” or a hospital, and whether the drugs were sold by a “wholesaler/distributer” or a pharmacy, and the judge granted that request. IDOC must also “to admit or deny that the execution drugs were manufactured by Akorn, a now-bankrupt pharmaceutical company,” per Pizzuto’s request.
IDOC will also be required to provide Pizzuto with an unredacted copy of the certificate of analysis done on the chemicals. The copy given to Pizzuto in January had a redacted date.
“They have not explained how their supplier could be identified if the Report Date is disclosed,” Winmill wrote. “Nor can the Court intuit how that date, which merely reflects when the chemical analysis was performed, is linked to the drug’s manufacture.”
The court gives IDOC 14 days to comply with the order.