Who Dun It?

In today's TimesSelect, Adam Liptak writes about the pro's and con's of executioner anonymity.

The pro side is a Missouri law:

A new law, signed this month by Gov. Matt Blunt, makes it unlawful to reveal “the identity of a current or former member of an execution team,” and it allows executioners to sue anyone who names them.

The governor explained that the law “will protect those Missourians who assist in fulfilling the state’s execution process.”

Con is some chick from Fordham:

A forceful and persuasive article published in the Fordham Law Review in April argued for “a right to know who is hiding behind the hood.”

Its author, Ellyde Roko, who will start her third year of law school at Fordham in the fall, said in an interview that society’s interest in knowing how the death penalty is administered should outweigh the relatively flimsy interests supporting secrecy. “Not knowing who the executioners are takes away a huge check on the system,” she said.

The JP doesn't agree with either position. I don't see why a prisoner should have a right to have his executor named if nothing goes wrong. Should the prison have to give him the names and addresses of his guards before he leaves? Seems like a recipe for retaliation to me.

But, if the executioner botches the job ("[It] require[s] executioners to insert catheters and to prepare three chemicals and inject them, in the right dosage and sequence, into intravenous lines. If the first chemical is ineffective as a sedative, the other two are torturous") there should be recompense as in any governmental screw-up that happens to a prisoner.

Perhaps a qualified anonymity, unless a (state (can we keep the feds' grubby hands out of the police power please AGAG?)) commission finds a basis for liability, in which case the identity is revealed to the estate of the deceased?