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drug, and Piersol's order had said any such information could be blacked out.
• But Jackley said that it's likely that references to protected information would be missed in more than 1,700 pages of briefs. And even if every instance of the manufacturer or supplier's name is redacted, the documents contain "potential clues that an astute investigator could use to identify the manufacturer supplier," Jackley wrote.
• Robert Doody, executive director of the ACLU of South Dakota, said the public deserves to know whether the drugs are FDA-approved and whether they came from lawful or legitimate sources, not a questionable compounding pharmacy.
• "The documents are sealed so closed that all we can kind of do is speculate upon what might be in there or what might not be in there," Doody said Thursday. "We have a suspicion that if you're going to blanket seal documents, then you're trying to hide something."
• Jackley, who could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday, argued in filings that the Arkansas Public Defender's Office, which had been representing Moeller, should provide searchable electronic files to the court.
• But that office said it didn't have its files in that format and it's no longer part of the case. The public defender suggested that South Dakota officials use software to make their documents searchable.
• Like many other death penalty states faced with dwindling supplies of sodium thiopental, South Dakota has turned to pentobarbital for its executions. The barbiturate is normally used to treat anxiety and convulsive disorders such as epilepsy.
• South Dakota used the drug on Moeller, who was executed for the slaying of 9-year-old Becky O'Connell, and on Eric Robert, who was put to death just weeks before Moeller for the 2011 killing of a prison guard.
• Piersol had upheld the constitutionality of Moeller's conviction and sentence, but he never ruled on a challenge to South Dakota's execution protocol because Moeller had said he wanted no part of it and insisted he was ready to die. That legal challenge contended the use of pentobarbital in a one-drug method inflicts cruel and unusual punishment. South Dakota had previously used a three-drug protocol in its executions.
• A July court filing by the state suggested it intended to obtain its pentobarbital through a compounding pharmacy. Such pharmacies custom-mix solutions, creams and other medications in doses or forms generally not commercially available. They've come under scrutiny after a deadly meningitis outbreak linked to contaminated injections made by a Massachusetts specialty pharmacy. The FDA considers compounding pharmacy products unapproved drugs and does not verify their safety

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