Georgia prison officials blamed chilly storage temperatures in March for the "cloudy" appearance of a lethal injection drug that forced the delay of a condemned woman's execution. But new court filings suggest state officials still aren't certain what caused chunks of a white solid to gel in the deadly solution.
When it announced the pharmaceutical expert's findings in April, the department also released a short video showing a syringe of clear liquid with chunks of a white solid floating in the solution. ... But corrections officials did not make the results of that test public when they announced "the most likely cause" of the cloudiness in the drug.
When asked why the department did not release the results of its own test at that time, department spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan said in an email Friday, "The Department had no intent to mislead. Our agency reported to the courts to inform them of the experiment that we conducted and the outcome."
Kelly Gissendaner was set to be executed on March 2 for persuading her lover to murder her husband in 1997, and her case attracted international attention and last-minute pleas for mercy for the 46-year-old mother of three. The delay in her execution has also led to more scrutiny over Georgia's secretive execution policies.
Just a few years ago, Georgia was required to disclose how it obtained the chemicals it uses to execute condemned inmates. But a 2013 law that classified that information as "confidential state secrets" means details such as what drugs are used for lethal injections, who made them and what physicians prescribed them are shielded from the public.
The law has been upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court and there's no appetite among leading lawmakers to change it despite criticism from civil rights attorneys and open government advocates.
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