Texas Department of Criminal Justice

TEXAS – Texas prison system has drugs for 23 executions

May 19, 2012  source : AP

After prodding from Texas AG, prison system says it has enough drugs to execute 23 inmates
Texas prison officials disclosed Friday they have enough lethal drugs to execute as many as 23 people.
In response to this week’s opinion from the state attorney general’s office that said the Texas Department of Criminal Justice could not withhold information about the drug supply, the department said it currently has 46 2.5-gram vials of pentobarbital. A 5-gram dose — about 3.4 ounces — is the 1st lethal drug used during each execution in Huntsville, according to Texas execution procedures.
The prison agency said it had similar supplies of 2 other drugs also administered to condemned inmates. It did not, though, identify suppliers of the lethal drugs, which the opinion also had addressed.
Executions also involve 100 milligrams of pancuronium bromide and 140 milliequivalents of potassium chloride. Texas has 290 10-milligram vials of the pancuronium bromide — 10 are required per execution — and 737 20-milliequivalent vials of potassium chloride — 7 per punishment.
The department’s written procedures call for a matching set of drugs and syringes “in case unforeseen events make their use necessary.” But in a brief statement emailed to reporters late Friday, the agency said a backup set of lethal drugs for executions “is not actually prepared, but an additional dose is available if needed.”
The attorney general’s opinion, dated Monday, was an answer to public information requests filed earlier this year by the Austin American-Statesman and British newspaper The Guardian.
Prison officials had argued that releasing the information could be harmful to employees and provide death penalty opponents a way to harass the drug suppliers with the hope firms would refuse to do business with the state.
“We find your arguments as to how disclosure of the requested drug quantities would result in the disruption of the execution process or otherwise interfere with law enforcement to be too speculative,” Sean Opperman, an assistant attorney general, wrote in the opinion.
The prison agency had 30 days to comply with the opinion or to challenge it in court. The status of the supplier question was not immediately clear.
Opperman said that, while the attorney general’s office “acknowledge(s) the department’s concerns,” the corrections department didn’t show how disclosure of the information “would create a substantial threat of physical harm to any individual.”
Department officials previously had indicated they had a sufficient supply to handle upcoming executions. At least five are scheduled for this summer, including one early next month.
Last year, one of the drugs Texas had used in the process, sodium thiopental, became unavailable when its European supplier bowed to pressure from death penalty opponents and stopped making it. No other vendor could be found, so the drug was replaced by pentobarbital.
The physical effects of pentobarbital on condemned inmates have not been noticeable during the executions, but the financial cost to the state has risen considerably. Prison officials put the cost of the previous mixture at $83.35. It’s now $1286.86, with the higher cost primarily due to pentobarbital.

TEXAS – For immediate release – Thomas Whitaker

DEATH ROW INMATES SUE TEXAS GOVERNOR RICK PERRY AND SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE FOR ABUSIVE CONDITIONS
Livingston, Texas, USA ‐ April 26, 2012
Thomas Whitaker, an inmate on Texas death row, has filed a class action lawsuit against Texas Governor Rick Perry, Senator John Whitmire, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
for the inhumane and unconstitutional conditions under which the men on death row must live.
Allegations include taking away wheelchairs from those who cannot walk, denying mental and physical health care, being held in solitary confinement for over ten years without any legal justification based on their conduct, dangerously unsafe living conditions, inadequate nutrition, inadequate exercise, denial of adequate access to telephones, destruction and loss of necessary legal documents, denial of religious freedom, denial of fair administrative process, failure to timely deliver mail including legal correspondence, and other abuses. 
 
In the case of Ruiz v. Estelle, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District held that conditions for the Texas prison system were unconstitutional but also held that the inmates of death row would need to bring a separate lawsuit to address their unique situation. That is the action now being taken by Whitaker. There have been acts of retaliation by TDCJ toward men who have been a part of this suit or similar litigation.
Thomas Whitaker, No. 999522, age 32, from Fort Bend County, Tx, Residing on Texas Death Row since March 2007, convicted under the Law of Parties. Visit his blog: “Minutes Before Six”.
Contact Information
Robert B. Wells,
Co‐Director
Descending Eagles
512/478‐4973
Fax: 512/302‐4774
P.O. Box 49339, Austin, Tx 78765
3724 Jefferson, Ste. 309, Austin, Tx 78731
The following acts and omissions of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice have caused irreparable harm to all residents of death row at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas. These acts and omissions continue to harm the residents of death row at the Polunsky Unit. All residents now housed at Polunsky, previously housed at Ellis, on death row were put in solitary confinement in administrative segregation improperly and in violation of the existing plan for incarceration of those persons on male death row. Although most of the residents had not been charged with or found guilty of any conduct that would be punishable by solitary confinement, they have been retained in solitary for over ten years (since 2000). No less than a full due process hearing is required to determine whether there is a valid reason for the continued confinement in solitary. No such hearings have been held. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice regulations require a hearing with attendance by the Plaintiff, the warden, and the Classification Committee of the unit to determine if administrative segregation is appropriate or to extend such conditions beyond a limited period. There have been no such hearings. Those so held do not meet the Texas Department of Criminal Justice [TDCJ] requirements for such confinement because there has been no determination that each individual is in need of segregation for his protection or safety; there is no violation of the regulations of TDCJ for which a hearing is pending, there is no reason to assume that all are “custody risks” when they have shown no signs of being such. The fact that another person attempted escape does not make this entire class any more of a custody risk than the average person incarcerated in the general population.
By both action and inaction basic human needs of adequate food, safe shelter, adequate exercise, medical care and living conditions conducive to mental health are being denied every resident of death row. There are frequent failures to provide sufficient nutrition for the residents of death row in their daily food provision. Housing conditions include unsanitary living conditions due to inadequate cleaning of the cells and shower areas. At times, no cleaning product other than water is used by those performing general cleaning. Residents are not given access to cleaning products to maintain their cells in a sanitary condition and to kill black mold. Although security might dictate precluding caustic chemicals in the area housing those who might be a security risk, there is no reason to deny them ordinary cleaning products to keep their living area safe from disease causing bacteria. The food trays are often placed on the floors where there is sewage or spittle. The showers have inadequate ventilation causing it to be so humid and hot that residents have been made ill. The attorney visitation booths are not adequately ventilated for the residents. When an unruly resident is being gassed for misconduct, the other are exposed to so much of the caustic and harmful fumes as to also suffer from the contact. There is inadequate exercise. One hour a week is inadequate for the maintenance of physical health. There is no reason access to the outdoors and vigorous physical activity daily should be denied. The cells have inadequate ventilation and they effectively shut off the residents from all contact with the outside world. The occupants of the cells are subjected to harsh temperatures. The ceilings of some cells leak and there is black mold growing in some cells. Lights are controlled by officers who turn them off and on at their discretion exposing those trying to sleep to light that awakens them and prevents adequate rest. Food is served at hours not usually considered appropriate for meals with no justification for such a schedule. Clothing also is delivered at hours designed to interrupt sleep. Other than the brief periods they are allowed out to shower and one time a week they are allowed recreation, they are in solitary confinement twenty‐four hours a day, seven days a week. The prolonged period of sensory deprivation has resulted in serious mental health conditions. No effort has been made to examine the residents of these isolation cells to see how they have been damaged by these conditions.
There has been a frequent lack of care used in regard to legal documents. When their cells are searched for contraband, their legal documents are often tossed in with other property and subsequently lost or damaged.
In violation of the regulations of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, “legal visits” between offenders in order to obtain needed assistance in their legal cases have been curtailed. Adequate postage is denied which prevents corresponding with legal counsel when necessary. Mail sent to or received from legal representatives has been opened and read.
Access to law books is very limited and difficult as well as access to information that could be gained from having greater access to the library and to television. Telephone access so as to be able to contact their legal representatives is not permitted. Residents of death row are denied adequate telephone access to contact legal counsel. At times, the transport of the resident is so slow that they are denied access to legal counsel. Counsel often is forced to wait for up to an hour or completely denied a legal visit. 
 
Residents of death row have been denied reasonable treatment for diagnosed medical conditions. Medical staff exhibits indifference or is unavailable. Dental care is extremely inadequate as is care of vision. Those in need of wheelchairs are now being denied access to a wheelchair and required to walk using a walker out of an excessive reaction to one person having been a security risk because he was being transported in a wheelchair when a weapon was found in the wheelchair. There is a concerted effort to avoid identifying the mentally handicapped for fear it will lead to them getting their sentences reduced to life rather than execution. Further, the mentally ill are not housed separately as is required by the regulations. Those nearby are kept awake by the shouts of those who are psychologically disturbed. There is inadequate treatment of the mental health issues that incarceration in these conditions necessitates. There is totally inadequate screening to determine whether mental health issues have arisen. There is inappropriate supervision of the mentally ill in terms of their maintenance on the prescribed treatment. The seriously mentally ill are not transferred to more suitable facilities nor is staff trained to deal with them properly. Prescribed medications and “over the counter” medications are not provided promptly or consistently so as to allow maintenance of the health of all residents, both mentally and physically in need of regular treatment. Both the mentally and physically ill have had the water turned off in their cells to prevent them from urinating due to dehydration. They have been denied food so as to not have fecal matter if the mentally ill individuals throw feces at guards. The physically ill had hemorrhoids and was bleeding excessively. At such time as each such sick individual became unable to move, they were finally given some degree of treatment at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. Contrary to the ethical standards required, no physician or guard or warden reported these crimes of abuse. The elderly, diabetic or mentally ill have been abused because they could not move quickly or fell due to their fragile condition. The very severely mentally ill are incapable of completing their administrative appeals due to their condition. Everyone suffers emotional trauma from witnessing these episodes of abuse of weak and fragile individuals. The mentally challenged or mentally ill are subject to punishment for their failure to understand the regulations they must follow. Their non‐compliance due to confusion leads to longer and longer confinement in segregation without clothes, mattress, linens, and inadequate food and medication. Guards are poorly trained in mental health so as to recognize whether there is real misconduct or a lack of comprehension. Those who are delusional are harassed and tormented by some guards. These guards are not disciplined or terminated, but are allowed to continue to abuse the mentally ill. Those who are mentally ill are incompetent to personally bring any grievance or complaint on their own behalf. Assistive devices such as braces, medical issue boots, and wheelchairs have been confiscated and not provided to those requiring them for proper function of their extremities or movement from location to location. Adequate pain medication is routinely withheld.
All residents are denied activities that would be conducive to good mental health such as an opportunity to engage in creative work or crafts which are allowed those in the general population of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and only denied to residents of death row, including those who have nearly perfect conduct records. They are further denied access to television. These activities were allowed until recently. Some men escaped from Ellis, as a consequence of their conduct ‐ not the conduct of the current residents of death row at Polunsky, all previous activities that actually provided the residents with an incentive to improve their conduct so as to be able to engage in such activities, have been curtailed. It should be noted that the residents of death row purchase the materials with which to do crafts from the commissary operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice which provides money for the operation of the prison system. The men then were able to sell their work and spend the money paid for the completed craft project at the commissary, which actually recirculates the money again into the income of TDCJ. There is no security reason for denial of this activity. Furthermore, when a resident attempts to design his own craft activity, it is destroyed because using shoe strings or thread or plastic lids to make a craft is deemed using the item for a purpose other than the one originally intended. This is cruel and an absurd abuse of authority.
The residents of death row are thwarted in their attempts to pursue their administrative appeals as these appeals are mislaid either accidentally or intentionally or by there being a denial of the right to pursue their administrative appeal to conclusion due to action designed to delay or circumvent the administrative process.
Access to religious literature and other religious objects is denied in an indiscriminate manner. Those on death row are also denied the right to attend a religious service. No religious service is available for them to attend. Some are denied access to a representative of their faith as a spiritual adviser. In regard to adequacy of food, food that is Halal or Kosher is being exposed to pork grease.
The mail room is one of the worst situations for those men on death row. Entire publications are being withheld because the newspaper or magazine contains one article that the particular person screening the mail found unacceptable without applying the written standard as set out in Department regulations. Correspondence is very, very frequently mishandled. There is an ongoing retaliatory process to prevent some residents from sending or receiving their mail or to delay receipt of their mail unnecessarily. The amount of postage actually physically permitted each individual has been unduly and unreasonably curtailed.Access to postage at all has also been unreasonably curtailed. Legal mail has been opened before being delivered and has been  read. Outgoing legal mail has been read. There is no justification for denial of access to television. Television was available until death row was moved to the Polunsky Unit. Charitable groups have offered to donate televisions, there is an empty rack for holding a television in the day room, but no television. There is no valid security reason for denying access to the educational and recreational benefits of television. No other residents of penal institutions in Texas are denied televisions. This, on occasion, denies access to information that would be beneficial in regard to their legal defense.
The opportunity to work in a job in the Department of Criminal Justice is now suspended. That suspension needs to be ended. Other men found guilty of murder who are in the general population are permitted to work. This would be a very strong incentive for the men to maintain good conduct. Many, if not most, men on death row would be eager to have an opportunity to perform work. This would reduce the cost of maintaining their pod. They would willingly clean their pod themselves. They would maintain their own living area better than it is now cleaned.
Giving any person who is incarcerated incentives for good conduct is going to result in fewer disciplinary problems. Treating people fairly and with decent concern for their health and safety and emotional needs will result in a group that is easier to discipline. Those who do not respect the opportunity, then deserve to have opportunities denied.
Source: Minutes Before Six, April 26, 2012
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TEXAS – DEATH ROW PRISONER SUES GOV. PERRY OVER INTOLERABLE LIVING CONDITIONS

may 5 , 2012 by Execution Watch

LIVINGSTON, Texas — A prisoner on death row has filed a class-action lawsuit against Gov. Rick Perry and other officials for inhumane and unconstitutional living conditions, the nonprofit group Descending Eagles announced Friday.

Among the abuses alleged in the suit are:
— taking away wheelchairs from those who cannot walk,
— denying mental and physical health care,
— being held in solitary confinement for over ten years without any legal justification based on their conduct,
— dangerously unsafe living conditions, including inadequate nutrition and exercise,
— denial of adequate access to telephones,
— destruction and loss of necessary legal documents,
— denial of religious freedom
— denial of fair administrative process,
— failure to timely deliver mail including legal correspondence

The suit, which also names state Sen. John Whitmire and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, identifies as the plaintiff death row prisoner Thomas Whitaker of Fort Bend County.

Descending Eagles, the Austin-based nonprofit that helps death row prisoners and their families, said there have been acts of retaliation by TDCJ toward men who have been a part of the suit or similar litigation.

TEXAS – New execution date set for Balentine august 22

april 20 source : http://amarillo.com

Balentine

Prosecutors have secured the third execution date in more than a decade for an Amarillo man convicted in the 1998 killings of three Amarillo teens, according to court records.

The state is set to execute John Balentine, 43, on Aug. 22, according to an order from 320th District Court Judge Don Emerson.

Since his 1999 capital murder conviction, Balentine has eluded two execution dates after state and federal judges have stayed his executions, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records. Most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court declined last month to hear his appeal and lifted the stay.

un 15 2011 Application (10A1226) granted by the Court. The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Scalia and by him referred to the Court is granted pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the issuance of the mandate of this Court.
Mar 21 2012 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of March 23, 2012.
Mar 26 2012 Petition DENIED.

In a letter to Emerson, Lydia Brandt, Balentine’s attorney, said prosecutors are needlessly rushing an execution date as she plans to file a federal case on behalf of her client.

“Worse, setting an execution date, knowing that further litigation is imminent, will needlessly inflict more suffering on the victims’ families,” Brandt’s letter said.

Brandt has said the defendant’s trial attorney did not include any evidence of Balentine’s violent and abusive childhood, which might have swayed jurors toward life in prison.

A Potter County jury found Balentine guilty in 1999 of fatally shooting Edward Mark Caylor, 17; Kai Brooke Geyer, 15; and Steven Brady Watson, 15. Authorities said he fired .32-caliber pistol shots into the heads of all three teens as they slept in an East 17th Avenue home.

Prosecutors said the incident stemmed from an argument between Balentine and Caylor, whose sister had been in a relationship with Balentine.

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Texas – TDCJ wants to block release of lethal injection drug info

april 3, 2012 source : http://www.chron.com

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is refusing to disclose the size of its stock of a key pharmaceutical used in executions, saying doing so would endanger its drug makers and suppliers.

The charge comes in a brief filed with the Texas Attorney General’s Office in response to a December query by an British newspaper concerning the contents of state’s death house medicine chest. The agency said releasing such information would provide ammunition for Reprieve, a British anti-death penalty group that successfully has pressured drug makers to stop selling to executioners.

Likening Reprieve’s campaigns to those of violent prison gangs, the brief written by TDCJ Assistant General Counsel Patricia Fleming asserts that releasing information “creates a substantial risk of physical harm to our supplier. … It is not a question of if, but when, Reprieve’s unrestrained harassment will escalate into violence…”

TDCJ is seeking authorization not to answer questions posed in a December public information request by Ed Pilkington, the New York correspondent for The Guardian, a national British newspaper. An attorney general’s response is expected this month.

Pilkington sought to determine how much pentobarbital, one of three drugs used in executions, the death house had in stock. He also asked how the agency met requirements that a second “back up” dose of lethal drugs be available at executions.

“I was very surprised by the language they chose to use, which was pretty inflammatory, really,” Pilkington said. “Obviously, there is an international disagreement over the death penalty. … Usually that discourse is conducted in a civilized manner.”

He called the claim that the prison system’s drug suppliers were in jeopardy, “pretty far-fetched.”

‘Public interest’

Joseph Larsen, a lawyer for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said Pilkington’s questions go to the “heart of how effectively TDCJ performs its official functions.”

“The whole idea behind the Texas Public Information Act is that the governmental bodies do not get to control the information that underlies political discussion,” he said. “Specifically, the governmental body does not even get to ask why a requestor wants certain information. How then can a governmental body base its argument for withholding on what use it anticipates will be made of the information if released?”

In a 2008 case, the Attorney General’s Office sided with TDCJ in denying Forbes magazine the names of companies that supplied execution drugs, noting that “releasing the names of the companies would place the employees of those companies in imminent threat of physical danger.”

Drug’s maker pressed

An appeals court rejected that ruling the following year.

Pentobarbital was added to the state’s lethal cocktail in May 2011, replacing sodium thiopental after that drug’s maker stopped production, in part because of Reprieve’s anti-drug agitation.

Reprieve followed by directing international pressure on Lundbeck, pentobarbital’s Danish maker, obtaining a July 2011 agreement that the company no longer would sell to prisons in death penalty states. The production plant later was sold, but the new owner abided by the agreement.

Reprieve also targeted a pharmaceutical company that had supplied sodium thiopental to Arizona. On its website, Reprieve posted photos of the supplier’s office along with its tax returns and the name, phone number and address of its owner.

Book : In the Timeless Time

march 29, 2012 source : http://www.buffalo.edu

Authors revisit world of death row

Bruce Jackson is known in some circles as the dean of prison culture. Since the early 1960s, the SUNY Distinguished Professor and James Agee Professor of American Culture in the UB Department of English has been studying the little-known lives and culture of inmates in one of America’s oldest penal institutions.

Jackson‘s work has resulted in classics of prison lore and culture, including “A Thief’s Primer” (1969), “In the Life” (1972), “Wake Up Dead Man” (1972) and in 1980, “Death Row” with his wife and collaborator Diane Christian, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the UB English department.

The couple’s latest prison book, “In This Timeless Time: Living and Dying on Death Row in America” has just been published by University of North Carolina Press in association with the Center of Documentary Studies at Duke University. It is a volume of photographs and stories illuminating the world of death row inmates in the O.B. Ellis Unit, a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison in Walker County, Texas. It also explores what happened to those prisoners and what has happened in capital punishment practice, legislation and jurisprudence over the past four decades.

“In This Timeless Time” has been named by Publishers Weekly one of its top 10 social science recommendations in its 2012 spring books issue. The book continues and expands upon stories addressed in “Death Row” and includes a DVD of the authors’ 1979 documentary film of the same name.

Although both books feature the same subject, they take very different approaches to the story. “The first book was essentially a snapshot in time,” Jackson says. “‘In This Timeless Time’ looks back and analyzes what has happened to those inmates and to the death penalty in America since the first book was published.”

The book includes a series of 92, mostly unpublished, photographs of the Ellis unit and its prisoners taken during the authors’ fieldwork for “Death Row.” This section also offers brief notes about what happened to the photo subjects, many of whom were executed, some of whom had their sentences commuted to life, one of whom was paroled, one of whom was exonerated after 22 years on the row and one of whom is still there.

The second section explains events in the world of capital punishment over the past three decades, including changes in law and current arguments over the death penalty.

The final section discusses how the authors completed the book, and looks at the problems they encountered doing the work and their stance on ethical issues related to the death penalty and to prison reform.

“We believe that killing people in cold blood for the crime of killing people in hot or cold blood is not justified. You shouldn’t do the things you say you shouldn’t do,” says Christian, adding that in the new book she and Jackson elaborate on their points of view and consider studies on capital punishment and relevant Supreme Court decisions.

In both books, the couple describes the treatment of the prisoners as “remedial torture” and recounts the conditions the men were forced to endure, such as having the glass windows of their cells replaced with frosted glass, which not only prevented them from seeing the outside world, but caused them to develop chronic optical myopia because they could not exercise their distance vision.

The authors point out that the United States remains the only industrialized nation that still employs the death penalty. While the pace of capital sentences has slowed here, Jackson suggests it’s partly because it costs the system less to imprison a person for life than to sentence him or her to death, which involves the cost of repeated appeals and heightened security.

“In some states, legislatures have been reconsidering the death penalty, not for moral reasons, but because they’re broke,” says Jackson.

Another major change is the introduction of life without parole as a sentencing option.

“As it turns out, the main thing the juries wanted wasn’t to kill the criminals, but to get them off the street and make sure they stayed off the street,” he says.

Jackson explains that while states are becoming less likely to use capital punishment, the federal government has become more punitive and restrictive since the Oklahoma City bombing. The appeals process has become much more difficult and capital punishment is permitted for more crimes.

Prisons also have become more conservative and restrictive to outsiders wanting to come in, which would make it difficult—if not impossible—for anyone today to write a book like “Death Row” or “In This Timeless Time.” Jackson and Christian had access to the prison to photograph, film and speak to inmates three decades ago, but when they tried to go back to revisit death row for their new book, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice refused their calls and ignored their emails. Information on the inmates they interviewed in 1979 had to be culled from the prison system’s online website.

Prison system appears to have bought $50,000 in execution drug last year

march 29, 2012  source :http://www.statesman.com

A year ago, facing a possible shortage of key drugs needed to keep the nation’s busiest execution chamber in business, Texas prison officials appear to have purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of the lethal drugs, new disclosures by state officials reveal.

While no detail is provided, records obtained by the American-Statesman hint that Texas could have enough of the drugs on hand to cover its executions for more than a year and perhaps the largest stockpile in the country — at a time when other states are scrambling to find suppliers for the same drugs.

The disclosure came this week, when the Texas Department of Criminal Justice filed paperwork seeking to keep secret all details of five purchases last May and June of “medical supplies” from Physician Sales & Service Inc.

Asked by the Statesman to make public details about those purchases made with taxpayer dollars, as the agency routinely does with other items it buys, prison officials appealed to Attorney General Greg Abbott to keep the information from public view.

“The requested copies of vouchers, invoices, purchase orders and other purchasing documents will reveal the identities of suppliers of the agency’s lethal injection drugs,” Patricia Fleming, an assistant general counsel for the prison system, wrote in a letter Tuesday to Abbott.

Although Fleming’s letter seems to state that the purchases were lethal drugs, a spokesman for the prison agency disputed that.

“We’ve not identified what the medical supplies are listed on the invoices,” prison spokesman Jason Clark said.

In seeking to keep the information secret, Fleming wrote that disclosure would allow death penalty opponents and others “to intimidate, harass and threaten the suppliers, forcing them to shut down production or blacklist correctional departments.”

She also accused an “abolitionist coalition” including death penalty opponents, human-rights organizations, criminal defense attorneys and the media of engaging in a campaign to cut off the supply of execution drugs.

At least twice recently, drugmakers facing pressure from death penalty opponents stopped selling one of the three drugs used in lethal injections in the United States — or stopped making it altogether, the letter says.

According to public state purchasing records, the prison agency on May 4 paid for $22,928.76 worth of “medical supplies” from Physician Sales & Service.

The following day, the agency paid for three additional purchases totaling $24,839 from the same firm — for 39 vials of the execution drug Nembutal, according to a copy of the invoice for that purchase. The American-Statesman obtained a copy of that invoice from a complaint filed last year by attorneys for two death row inmates who asked the Texas Department of Public Safety to investigate the purchase.

On June 1, the agency paid for another $1,910.73 in “medical supplies” from the company, according to the records, which list no detail.

The nearly $50,000 in purchases are a tiny fraction of the agency’s $3 billion budget and comparable to the $19,000 a year it costs taxpayers to incarcerate a prisoner. And while the price of execution drugs has increased 15-fold over the past year, death penalty supporters and crime victims groups say the cost is well worth it to ensure public safety.

The purchases could presumably include other commonly used medical items such as syringes, gloves, saline solution and other items used in executions — although such items are unlikely to cost tens of thousands of dollars. Furthermore, the agency did not disclose redacted versions of the invoices — as most agencies, including the prison system, usually do in responding to public records requests when they want to keep some details secret.

State records reviewed by the American-Statesman show the purchases during 2011 were the only ones the agency has made in recent years from Physician Sales & Service, at a Houston address.

The company, headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., did not return calls for comment. On its website, it bills itself as “the country’s largest supplier of medical products to physician practices.”

The prison system buys its execution drugs directly, not through its separate medical providers as other states have done, documents previously made public have shown.

Regardless of how much stock the agency has on hand, Clark said “the agency has no plans to sell drugs to other states” — as some other states have done.

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