LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska judge has ordered the state to pay nearly $60,000 in attorney fees to two newspapers and an advocacy group that sued the state for its refusal to release public records related to lethal injection drugs.

The Lincoln Journal Star reports that state officials were ordered to pay about $19,500 to the Lincoln Journal Star and the Omaha World-Herald and more than $20,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The newspapers and the ACLU filed the lawsuits after prison officials refused their public records requests. The judge previously ordered officials to release records of its communications with its lethal injection drug supplier, as well as several other documents related to Nebraska’s efforts to carry out the death penalty.
Prison officials appealed that decision, and the records remain undisclosed.