From public hangings in the town square to lethal injections witnessed by journalists, executions have historically tended to be carried out with at least some public scrutiny. That won’t be the case early Wednesday in Indiana Joseph Corcoran will be put to death by lethal injection without independent witnesses present.
The unusual secrecy is the result of state laws that shield information about the death penalty, and some First Amendment advocates and death penalty experts say the lack of transparency during the most severe government sentences is alarming.
Media witnesses play a crucial role in executions by providing the public with independent, factual and factual accounts of an execution, says Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
“The media guarantees government accountability and transparency in an otherwise closed and secretive process,” Maher said. “The decision to exclude media witnesses raises troubling questions about whether government officials lack the confidence or ability to carry out the execution without ruin it.”
The Associated Press strives to cover every American execution because the public has the right to know about all stages of the criminal justice process — even when things don’t go according to the government’s plans. Witnesses from the AP and other news organizations were able to do this tell the audience when executions went wrong, also in Idaho, Alabama, Arizona, Oklahoma And Ohio.
Formal descriptions of lethal injections by prison officials are sometimes disinfected compared to the detailed reports of journalists. Federal executioners who 13 prisoners executed by lethal injection during the final months of the Trump administration, the process was likened to falling asleep, while reports from the AP and other media described how the stomachs of those sentenced to death trembled as the pentobarbital came into force.
Before Corcoran’s execution, journalists gathered outside the prison hoping to gather as much information as possible. Unlike previous executions, where reporters were at least allowed to wait in a conference room in the building, this time they were only allowed to wait in a parking lot.
In response to an AP request for comment, Brandi Pahl, spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Correction, cited state law, which explicitly outlines who can be present at an execution. Media witnesses are not mentioned.
“Any changes to this law, including adding media witnesses, would require legislative action and cannot be changed at the discretion of the department or its leadership,” Pahl wrote in an email. “Updates will be shared simultaneously with all members of the media via email.”
Indiana prison officials did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the earliest death penalty laws were recorded 3,800 years ago in the Codex of King Hammaurabi of Babylon. Over the next 1,800 years, death sentences were often carried out by public crucifixion, drowning, beating, burning, or impaling. By the 10th century, public hangings were the norm in parts of Europe.
The United States carried out executions in public institutions until 1834, when Pennsylvania became the first state to move them to penitentiaries, according to DPIC.
Today, the vast majority of the 27 death penalty states and the federal government recognize the need for public scrutiny through media witnesses.
According to the DPIC, Indiana and Wyoming are the only states that ban this. Wyoming has executed one person in the past half-century, with Mark Hopkinson killed by lethal injection in 1992.
Kris Cundiff, an Indiana attorney who works with the Reporters’ Committee for Freedom of the Press, said executions represent the “pinnacle of government action.”
“Executing a death sentence is perhaps the ultimate exercise of state power and authority,” Cundiff said. “So it is crucial that the media is there, the fourth estate, to monitor and report what is happening to the public.”
The only U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the subject came in 1890, when it upheld a total ban on media access to executions in a Minnesota case.
Despite the ban, in 1906 a reporter snuck into a Minnesota prison to witness the hanging of William Williams. The execution failed: the rope was too long and Williams hit the ground after falling through the gallows from the hatch. Prison officers had to hoist him back onto the rope and hold him for fourteen minutes until he was strangled.
Minnesota abolished the death penalty five years later.
Another 1980 Supreme Court ruling ruled that the First Amendment guaranteed the public – and the media – the right to witness murder trials: ‘People in an open society do not demand infallibility of their institutions, but it is difficult for them to accept what they want. It is forbidden to observe,” the court wrote.
In the years since, lower federal courts have regularly extended the right to witness criminal proceedings to other proceedings, including executions.
“To determine whether lethal injection executions are being carried out fairly and humanely, or whether they ever will be, citizens need reliable information about the ‘first procedures’, which are invasive, potentially painful and can lead to serious complications. This information is best gathered firsthand or through the media, which serve as a surrogate for the public,” a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in 2002.
Yet public access to executions in the country is eroding, according to research by the DPIC. At least 16 states have passed death penalty secrecy laws since 2010, the group says. Many of them focused on concealing details about where lethal injection drugs are obtained.
Pressure from news organizations has sometimes pushed prison officials to change confidentiality policies. Such was the case in 2017, when the Arkansas Department of Correction announced that media witnesses would not be allowed to use pencils or paper to take notes; that was changed after outlets reported on the ban.
In Idaho, these are the AP, East Idaho News and The Idaho Statesman charge for access to a part of the execution facility that is currently hidden from view. The news organizations want to be able to see how lethal injection drugs are administered through IV lines.
Idaho prison officials have not yet officially responded to the lawsuit, but say the state has one of the most transparent execution processes in the country.
Ahead of Corcoran’s scheduled execution, the heads of the Hoosier State Press Association, Indiana Broadcasters Association, Freedom of the Press Foundation and Indiana Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists sent a letter to Governor Eric Holcomb calling the secrecy a “miscarriage of justice.” mentioned. ”
“The decision to carry out an execution is the most serious act in which a state can engage, and such an act warrants an impartial witness who bears the burden of reporting the process to the people of Indiana,” the organizations said .