The Texas 3rd District Court of Appeals has rejected claims made by state corrections officials that disclosure of the identity of its supplier of the execution drug pentobarbital would expose the company to a "substantial threat of physical harm." Finding these claims to be “mere speculation,” the appeals court ruled on May 25, 2017, that Texas must disclose the identity of the compounding pharmacy that supplied execution drugs to the state in 2014. The ruling upholds a Travis County District Court order in a suit that was filed on behalf of two death-row prisoners under the state's Public Information Act. The prisoners' attempt to litigate a challenge to the state's lethal injection practices failed to halt their executions, but the district court later determined that the identity of the drug supplier was "public information" subject to disclosure under the state public records law. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) had argued that information concerning the identity of the compounding pharmacy that provided execution drugs fell within a safety exemption in the act, which shields release of otherwise public information where disclosure would create a "substantial threat of physical harm." The court found that TDCJ had shown nothing more than the risk of public criticism, which it said was not enough to block the supplier's identity from disclosure. The court recognized that "[t]here are myriad reasons why a private business or professional involved in the [execution] process would not want that fact known publicly—potential adverse marketplace effects, unwanted publicity, critical written or oral communications from members of the public, or protests, to name but a few of the unpleasantries that can accompany one’s association with such a controversial public issue." But under the law, the "sole permissible focus" is the "threat of physical harm from disclosure of the pharmacy’s or pharmacist’s identity—not, in themselves, any threats of harm to privacy or economic interests, threats of media or political 'firestorms,' or even threats of harm to property short of harm to persons." In 2016, a BuzzFeed News review of FBI records found that state claims that execution drug suppliers have been the subject of threats by anti-death penalty activists were largely unsubstantiated and exaggerated. Maurie Levin, one of the defense lawyers who filed the public records lawsuit, praised the court's ruling, saying: "They stuck to the law … and the law affirms that those who are involved in government actions don’t get to be anonymous and might be subject to criticism and protest." And she added, "That’s the nature of the beast. That is how our government works. I think the affirmation of those principles is really important." The decision is limited to the source of the state's execution drugs in 2014, because the state passed a broader secrecy law after the suit was filed. TDCJ has said it will appeal the ruling to the Texas Supreme Court. Texas is also suing the federal Food and Drug Administration over its seizure of execution drugs the FDA has said Texas attempted to illegally import from India. The FDA seized the drugs in October 2015, and issued a final order in April 2017 refusing to release the drugs.

("Appeals Court: Texas Must Reveal Execution Drug Supplier," Associated Press, May 25, 2017; Texas Department of Criminal Justice v. Maurie Levin, Naomi Terr, and Hilary Sheard, TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN NO. 03-15-00044-CV.) See Lethal Injection.

Thirty years after the crime that sent him to Pennsylvania's death row and 15 years after his case was argued in the U.S. Supreme Court, David Sattazahn was resentenced to life without parole—the sentence he initially received in his first trial in 1991. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, and the victim's family all agreed that a life sentence was the best outcome at this point in the case. Sattazahn was convicted of first-degree murder and the court sentenced him to life in prison in 1991 when his Berks County sentencing jury split 9-3 in favor of a life sentence. After his life sentence, Sattazahn pled guilty to several unrelated felony charges. His murder conviction was then overturned as a result of prejudicially inaccurate jury instructions, and in his retrial, prosecutors again sought the death penalty, using his guilty pleas as a new aggravating circumstance. In 1999, he was retried and sentenced to death, becoming the first death-after-life-sentenced defendant under Pennsylvania's death penalty statute. His appeal in that trial reached the U.S. Supreme Court (argument, pictured), which ruled 5-4 in 2003 that the non-unanimous jury vote in his case did not constitute a finding rejecting the death penalty, even though it had resulted in a life sentence. As a consequence, the Court wrote, subjecting Sattazahn to a second capital prosecution did not violate the Double Jeopardy clause of the U.S. Constitution. Sattazahn's 1999 death sentence was overturned in 2006 because of ineffective assistance of counsel. Faced with the possibility of a third sentencing hearing and additional appeals, the family of murder victim Richard Boyer, Sr. agreed that dropping the death penalty in favor of life without parole would help bring them closure. “Every time we try to get on with our lives, we're back in court, reliving that night again and again. There has to be an end to this madness,” said Barbara Spatz, Boyer's sister. Senior Deputy Attorney General Anthony Forray said his office consulted with Boyer's four children and four siblings before deciding to drop the death penalty. “No family should have to go through this,” Forray said. “The commonwealth believes that what is occurring today is the appropriate thing to occur if this family is ever going to have closure and if this is ever going to come to an end.” At a May 24, 2017 hearing in Reading, Pennsylvania, the Berks County Court of Common Pleas formally resentenced Sattazahn to life.

(S. Weaver, "Sattazahn case takes twists and turns over the past 30 years," The Reading Eagle, May 25, 2017; S. Weaver, "Prosecutors withdraw death penalty from Berks murder case," The Reading Eagle, May 25, 2017.) Sketch of Supreme Court argument in Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania by Dana Verkouteren. See Arbitrariness and Victims.