Texas Department of Criminal Justice v. Levin

OPINION

Bob Pemberton, Justice

This appeal concerns whether the common-law right to withhold “public information” from disclosure under the Public Information Act (PIA) when disclosure “would create a substantial threat of physical harm,” first recognized by the Texas Supreme Court in its Cox Texas Newspapers decision,1 shields the identity of a supplier of the lethal-injection drugs Texas uses in executions. At least on this record, we conclude it does not.

BACKGROUND

In the course of their legal representation of Texas death-row inmates, and against the backdrop of legal and policy controversy…