Idaho lawmakers to consider bill to keep source of lethal injections secret

A bill that would hide the source of lethal injection drugs was introduced in the Idaho state legislature on Monday, with the lawmaker behind it saying that “woke” anti-death penalty activists have shamed lethal drug makers.

As Boise State Public Radio reported, state Rep. Greg Chaney (R) argued on Monday that anti-capital punishment groups have concentrated a tactic to “leverage woke, cancel culture to shame providers of lethal injection drugs away from providing those drugs for executions for states.”

“They’ve been successful enough around the country that the word that [pharmacies] are giving to our department of corrections is ‘Don’t even call us if you cannot provide us with anonymity,'” Chaney said.

On Twitter, Chaney wrote, “I refuse to let woke cancel culture keep our state from enforcing our laws & ensuring public safety–especially when it comes to convicted murderers.”

Since Europe banned the export of the drugs in 2011, there has been a shortage in the U.S. for the necessary drugs to perform an execution by lethal injection. Some states, including Mississippi and Utah, have authorized firing squads as an execution method due to this shortage.

This bill comes amid ongoing efforts by state lawmakers to facilitate the execution of Gerald Pizzuto Jr., according to Boise State Public Radio. 

Pizzuto was convicted of beating a man and woman to death in 1985. His defense has called for his death sentence to be commuted due to his ill health, but Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) denied this request despite the Idaho Probation and Parole Board voting to recommend a commutation.