Why it's getting harder for Missouri to keep its lethal injection drugs a secret

Despite the increasing difficulty of obtaining drugs for lethal injection, states like Missouri keep killing death row inmates. The result: botched executions and increased secrecy.
This story was commissioned by the River City Journalism Fund as part of its series Shadow of Death, which considers St. Louis County’s use of the death penalty.

When Missouri executioners injected Kevin Johnson with a lethal dose of pentobarbital on November 29, few people were there to see it. One of only two reporters permitted to observe, Jim Salter of the Associated Press, described a quick and quiet end. Johnson closed his eyes while the drug took effect and his spiritual adviser murmured Bible verses, including Psalm 23: “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

“Within seconds,” Salter wrote, “all movement ceased.”