The Texas Department of Criminal Justice must reveal the name of the pharmacy that has supplied deadly execution drugs, the state’s highest civil court affirmed on Friday.

Last May, the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals ruled that the agency had to provide that information, despite its argument that doing so could endanger the supplier. The Texas Supreme Court denied this week to hear the agency’s appeal, leaving the lower court ruling in place.

The plaintiffs, three death row lawyers in Texas, said on Friday that they hoped the state would now finally honor the original district court’s 2014 order that commanded the state to disclose the information. 

“Today’s decision is a win for the fundamental principles of transparency and open government,” said Maurie Levin in a statement.

The state has fought to identify their 2014 supplier under the original court ruling.

“Disclosing the identity of the pharmacy will result in the harassment of the business and will raise serious safety concerns for the business and its employees,”  TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark told the Austin American-Statesman at the time. The department did not yet have a comment early Friday morning.

It’s not clear where the case will go from here, or whether the agency will immediately release the information.

Lawyers for the agency had argued that the pharmacy’s identity was an exception to the Texas Public Information Act, which aims to protect the public’s right to know about how taxpayers’ money is spent. But the appeals court said that information did not need to be shielded because the agency failed to show that the pharmacy would face “substantial threat of physical harm.”

The Texas Legislature passed a law in 2015 shielding the identity of the supplier and anyone else involved in an execution after the law passed. But in the meantime, this years-old case has continued to progress, with the plaintiffs fighting to reveal the name of its suppliers before the law passed. TDCJ would not be required to release the name of more recent suppliers.

Source: Texas Tribune Blue Government News