Facing the shortage, Texas, among others, turned to compounding pharmacies that mix their own drugs from raw materials. But, after the identity of the state’s supplier was revealed last year, it pulled out, USA Today reported. That’s why states argue secrecy statutes are necessary to protect suppliers’ identities — and ensure states have reliable sources for drugs.

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Texas, with its current stash running out, just turned to a new supplier, which it refuses to disclose — for the same reason.

Death row inmates in several states have sued to halt their executions, citing a potential violation of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. They argue that without knowing who is manufacturing their execution drugs, they have no way of ensuring those drugs will work as intended.

Ohio inmate Dennis McGuire, for example, was injected with a controversial drug combination earlier this year that reportedly caused him to make gasp-like sounds for several minutes before he was ultimately pronounced dead.

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That didn’t happen to Ferguson, who was convicted of abducting, raping and killing a 17-year-old girl in St. Charles 25 years ago, The Associated Press reported. But he still died without knowing where his lethal drugs came from. At the last minute, his attorneys challenged, among other things, Missouri’s refusal to disclose its secret drug source to no avail.

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Oklahoma inmates Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner recently filed suit to get their state to reveal its recipe for death. Earlier this month, the state attorney general’s office said a deal to obtain pentobarbital and vecuronium bromide, a muscle relaxer, had fallen through, and the inmates’ executions were delayed. Now, the state’s new protocol, identified in court papers filed Monday, includes the combination of midazolam and hydromorphone, which was used to execute McGuire.

One of the inmates’ attorneys Seth Day told the AP that with five possible procedures, Oklahoma’s “veil of secrecy” is even larger:

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“At least in the past we could narrow it down and have an idea of where they were possibly getting their drugs. … Now [the inmates] would have no idea and they could change it at the last minute. … The warden could choose at the last minute to use option five instead of option one, and they would have no obligation to inform the inmates or their lawyers.”

Georgia and Tennessee, among others, have also passed laws to keep execution secrets. And Alabama may soon join them.

Alabama’s House passed a bill this month to conceal the names of people involved in performing executions – as well as the names of people or companies that make the lethal drugs. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Lynn Greer, told The Anniston Star that he wants to protect the drugmakers — and, thereby, protect lethal injection as a form of execution.