Indiana execution procedure gives ultimate punishment behind a veil of secrecy

If the state of Indiana moves forward with the execution of convicted murderer Benjamin Ritchie on May 20 as planned, the Indiana news media — and by extension the public — will have no legal right to witness the proceeding. Our government will impose the ultimate punishment behind a veil of secrecy, with no objective witnesses.

It’s time for that to change.

Indiana is one of 27 states with the death penalty, but one of only two that prohibits professional media witnesses to its executions. Under state law, execution witnesses are limited to a small group of people, including the warden, immediate family members of the victim, no more than five friends or relatives of the convicted person, the prison physician, and the prison chaplain. The Indiana Department of Correction’s implementing policy explicitly states that the press “shall not be permitted to witness the execution or be in the Execution Chamber.”

Late last year, the state of Indiana executed death row inmate Joseph Corcoran, who was convicted of murdering four people in 1997. It marked the first time in 15 years that the state carried out the death penalty.

Members of the news media were barred from witnessing Corcoran’s death by lethal injection except for one. Indiana Capital Chronicle Senior Reporter Casey Smith witnessed Corcoran’s execution, but was only able to attend after being specifically invited by Corcoran to take one of the seats that the statute reserves for an inmate’s  friends and relatives. Smith’s access to Corcoran’s execution was an outlier. When the state carries out Ritchie’s execution later this month, journalists will be prevented from officially observing it.

Death row inmate Joseph Corcoran executed for quadruple murder

Earlier this week, attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Indiana’s ban on media access to executions on behalf of The Associated Press, the Indiana Capital Chronicle, Gannett, WISH-TV, and TEGNA. Our lawsuit argues that the media ban violates the First Amendment.

The public relies on journalists to serve as its eyes and ears, and Indiana’s exclusion of the news media from witnessing executions goes beyond safety or security. Indiana’s law and policy runs counter to the First Amendment and denies transparency to the public.

When state lawmakers hold hearings to discuss health care, public education, or property tax reform, we expect members of the news media to be there to document the debate and help us understand what it all means. When a mayor announces plans for a new economic development project, we expect reporters to be there to ask questions about how much it will cost and how it will impact the local community.

We should expect the same level of journalistic scrutiny when the government uses taxpayer dollars to carry out one of its gravest responsibilities — capital punishment.

Media witnesses play a crucial role in ensuring that executions are carried out lawfully. Their reporting provides the public with an accounting of execution protocol and proceedings, from start to finish. If the lethal injections go as planned, news reporting from media witnesses can help the public have greater confidence in the process. If things don’t go as planned and an inmate suffers a painful death at the hands of the state, journalists should be there to tell us about it.

The need for media witnesses is arguably more important today, as states increasingly use controversial methods to end the lives of death row inmates, despite mounting concerns that they don’t always work — or aren’t always administered — as intended. Reporting by independent media witnesses has shown that prison officials sometimes have conflicting accounts.

Indiana’s execution of Corcoran last December was the first in which the state used only a single drug, pentobarbital, rather than a cocktail of drugs as it has done in the past. (I am currently representing Indiana Capital Chronicle in a lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Correction seeking access to the cost of the drug. The lawsuit recently prompted officials to disclose that the state paid $900,000 to acquire the drug, but the government continues to resist disclosing important related information, including how much of the drug was purchased.)

Advocates for and against the death penalty will always debate its merit. But we should all agree that when the government carries out its ultimate punishment in the public’s name, it cannot be allowed to do so in secret.