Idaho appeals ruling ordering release of execution records

Idaho prison officials are appealing a judge’s order that they turn over documents that will reveal the source of the lethal injection drugs used in a recent execution.

The Idaho Department of Correction filed the notice of appeal this week in Ada County’s 4th District Court. In the notice, the prison officials say they want the Idaho Supreme Court to decide whether Judge Lynn Norton erred when she determined that a receipt from the compounding pharmacy that provided the drugs used in Richard Albert Leavitt’s execution in 2012 is a public document that must be released. The receipt was for drugs expected to be used in a later execution, but none has occurred since then.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed under Idaho’s public records law by University of Idaho Professor Aliza Cover after the department denied her public record request in 2017.