Many states now significantly restrict whether and how members of the press may observe and document the execution process, a survey by the Death Penalty Information Center has found. DPI’s survey of the 27 states that authorize the death penalty, plus the federal government, found that media policies vary widely in how many journalists are allowed to attend an execution. The number ranges from zero in Indiana and Wyoming to 12 in Florida. Some states—including Alabama, which leads the country in executions this year—allow media access only at the discretion of the department of corrections. States differ on whether the DOC selects individual journalists, or whether designated media outlets are permitted to select the journalists who will attend.
At least sixteen death penalty states that have passed new secrecy statutes since 2010, and every state that has conducted an execution in the past decade now has a secrecy statute.Those statutes hide critical details like the source of execution drugs and the identities of execution team members from the public—sometimes even from death-sentenced prisoners and their lawyers, who must obtain a court order for these details. But a secretive approach to executions is an anomaly in American history. “We’re the ones that are there as the eyes and ears of the public, and we’re there to ensure that the state does it correctly,” said Rhonda Cook, a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who has witnessed 28 executions.
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