American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California v. Superior Court

This petition for writ of mandamus presents two issues, both arising under the California Public Records Act (Gov. Code, § 6250 et seq.) 1 (PRA): (1) whether California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) may withhold the names of the pharmaceutical companies and others from which it sought to acquire a prescription drug used by the state in executing condemned inmates and (2) whether CDCR can delete information from disclosed documents on the ground it is not responsive to petitioner’s PRA request. The trial court answered both questions in the affirmative. We shall reverse the rulings.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW

California executes condemned inmates pursuant to a three-drug lethal injection protocol (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 15, § 3349 et seq.), which replaced a similar protocol previously found flawed by federal and state courts under the *63 Eighth Amendment and California’s Administrative Procedure Act (Gov. Code, § 11340 et seq.). (Morales v. Tilton (N.D.Cal. 2006) 465 F.Supp.2d 972 ; Morales v. California Dept. of Corrections & Rehabilitation (2008) 168 Cal.App.4th 729 [ 85 Cal.Rptr.3d 724 ].) The first drug injected under the new protocol, sodium…