Arizonans have no legal right to know where the state obtains drugs to execute inmates, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday.

June marked the end of a three-year long legal battle to tighten up Arizona’s execution laws, but even after the state reached an agreement, the fate of those on death row is still uncertain.

The novel policy has drawn sneers from defense attorneys who were puzzled as to why the state would think that they would assist in killing their clients.

A ruling by a federal judge Wednesday night kept in play a temporary ban on executions in Arizona, but it also allows condemned prisoners to press forward with a lawsuit protesting the way the state has carried out the death penalty.

The state has agreed not to execute anyone until after a judge has ruled on a lawsuit asking for the Department of Corrections to release information on drugs used to execute a prisoner who snorted and gasped for two hours before dying.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed an Arizona execution to go forward amid a closely watched First Amendment fight over the secrecy surrounding lethal injection drugs in the country.

A case challenging Arizona's refusal to reveal detailed information about the lethal combination it will use to put an inmate to death is now headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

An Arizona inmate scheduled for execution July 23 has appealed a trial-court ruling that keeps him from having information on the lethal drugs that will be used on him.

The Arizona Supreme Court on May 28 set the date for the state’s next execution even as a federal judge in Ohio delayed executions there on the previous day to hash out the constitutionality of a two-drug combination both states use for lethal injections.

Attorneys for two Arizona death row inmates are asking the Department of Corrections for information on who manufactured the drugs that will be used for their lethal injections.