After nearly 3 years of litigation, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services was recently forced to release records about its purchases of lethal injection drugs in 2017. The documents are a damning indictment of the @GovRicketts administration’s reckless push to kill:

The medical director of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (NDCS) communicated with the drug supplier through a non-government Gmail address, presumably an effort to avoid public records disclosure.

The execution drugs were paid for via invoices labeled “Miscellaneous Expense,” again presumably to avoid public records disclosure.

The drugs were sent out to various different laboratories to test for potency and purity. Two of the drugs were sent to the state crime lab and one drug was sent to a private lab. The drugs were not labeled as intended for use in an execution.

And one of the execution drugs was sent to the state Department of Agriculture’s fertilizer testing division. The Ag Department sent an email saying that it had inputted “dummy variables” into the computer, again presumably to hide the true purpose behind the drug purity test.

The supplier, Community Pharmacy Services in Gretna, Nebraska, knew that the drugs would be potentially used in executions when the sale was arranged. In fact, Community Pharmacy apparently offered a discount on the drugs in exchange for an exclusive prison pharmacy contract.

Community Pharmacy issued a statement and described the execution drug sale as “a deviation” from its “core business.”

Community Pharmacy’s owner said that the company “has never supplied drugs since then to the Nebraska Department of Corrections or any other department of corrections, nor will it ever again.”

Several pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the drugs in question have explicit contractual terms that prohibit wholesalers from selling the drugs for use in executions. Community Pharmacy has not commented on its potential legal liability under these contracts.

Nebraska ultimately used these drugs to execute Carey Dean Moore in August 2018. It was a one-of-a-kind untested pharmaceutical cocktail. Prison officials closed the witness room curtains when Moore’s entire body began to turn purple during the lethal injection.

State officials were forced to release photos of the lethal injection drugs in storage. Yes, that really is fentanyl. It was used in the August 2018 Nebraska execution.

All of this came after @GovRicketts and his family spent hundreds of thousands of their own dollars on a ballot campaign to reinstate the death penalty in Nebraska. Gov. Ricketts was reportedly upset and pursuing a personal vendetta after the legislature overrode his veto.

This wasn’t the Ricketts administration’s first foray into shady lethal injection drug purchases. In 2016, Nebraska paid $26,000 to a supplier in India for drugs that were immediately seized by the FDA as an illegal import. The supplier disappeared when NE requested a refund.

We knew about some of this back in 2017 and 2018, but the story is even worse now that we know the full truth. @GovRicketts and his administration have a lot of questions to answer. https://twitter.com/helenprejean/status/1028612617605185536