Wendy Kelley

Summary

The court held that the interlocutory appeal was properly before it because the circuit court had ruled on each ground underlying ADC's sovereign-immunity defense. It adopted the two-part method-of-execution test requiring prisoners to show both a substantial, sufficiently imminent risk of severe pain and a known, feasible, readily implemented alternative that significantly reduces that risk, and dismissed the prisoners' challenge because their proposed alternatives were not adequately pleaded as available to ADC. The court also rejected the prisoners' constitutional challenges to confidentiality of the execution-drug supplier's identity, concluding that disclosure was not required by due process, free speech, the Contract Clause, or the Publication Clause. Justice Wynne, concurring in part and dissenting in part, would have found a triable execution-method claim and held portions of the confidentiality law unconstitutional; Justices Danielson and Hart dissented on jurisdiction and preservation grounds, respectively.