Prison staffers, the condemned’s friends and family
members, and the victims’ family members may soon witness the state of
Indiana’s first execution since 2009. But it’s likely that no independent
witnesses will be included, reported News from the States.
Joseph Corcoran, who killed four people in 1997, is
scheduled to be executed Dec. 18. In
Indiana, the death penalty is only available for the crime of murder. It will
also be the state’s first time killing a prisoner with pentobarbital instead
of a traditional three-drug cocktail.
But public information on how it goes will come exclusively
from the Department of Correction. That’s because Indiana law, in contrast to
other states, doesn’t allow for media or other independent witnesses.
There were 13 federal executions during the last six months
of Donald Trump’s first presidential term and reporters were allowed to witness
them.
Tim Evans, of the Indianapolis Star, witnessed one of those
executions in July of 2020. Here is what he wrote in a column.
“(Daniel Lewis) Lee looked up briefly at us. Two small hoses
running from a stainless steel port in the green tile wall behind the gurney
were attached to IVs. One in his left elbow, the other on his right hand. In a
matter of minutes they would administer the lethal injection … Lee lay quietly
as the drug flowed into his veins. His chest rose and dropped slowly. At a
couple of points over the next two to three minutes Lee fluttered his lips,
like he was blowing bubbles. But nothing came out. His head bobbed up and to
the right, then dropped back down. He appeared to run his tongue over his lips,
and one hand twitched.”
Execution “is the most extreme punishment that society takes
in any criminal case,” said John Blume, a professor at Cornell Law School
professor and director of Cornell’s Death Penalty Project.
“And if you want the public to have confidence in the
administration of justice, it seems to me like you would want transparency to
be at its highest when (government) is taking its most draconian action,” Blume
added.
Indiana Department of Correction spokeswoman Brandi Pahl
wrote that “public information regarding who can be present” is available
in statute.
Indiana Code says only certain people may witness an
execution: the state’s prison warden and designees, the prison physician and
another doctor, the prison chaplain, the condemned’s spiritual adviser, a
maximum of five friends or family members of the condemned, and a maximum of
eight family members — at least 18 years old — of the victims or victims.
The law limits the latter witnesses to direct family
members: children, parents, grandparents or siblings. It allows, upon request,
a “support” room for additional victim family members.
The statute dates back to 1983 but was amended in 2002 to keep executioners’ identities
confidential and let wardens keep out dangerous witnesses, and in 2006 to reduce the number of the
condemned prisoners’ loved ones and to add victim family.
A 2015 analysis of states
with the death penalty, published in the Mississippi College Law Review, found
that Indiana was one of just five states that explicitly doesn’t allow
reporters or “respectable” citizens as witnesses. That’s along with Colorado,
Georgia, Texas and Wyoming.
Most states in the analysis — 20 — allowed for either a
reporter or another independent witness, or didn’t rule them out. Four states
expressly included reporters and other members of the public.
Blume, who spent years as a full-time capital defense
practitioner, said the condemned’s loved ones may provide support during the
execution or take action if something goes wrong. Victim family members,
meanwhile, may get “closure or satisfaction.”
Media, he, said would serve as “neutral members of the
public there to observe what happened and to report on it,” like if an
execution is botched, or to settle disputes over what happened.
An estimated 3% of U.S. executions between 1890 and 2010
went wrong in some way, according to the 2014 book “Gruesome Spectacles:
Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty,” by Amherst College professor
Austin Sarat.
In some cases recorded by the Death Penalty Information
Center, the injection — billed as a more humane method of execution than gas,
firing squad, or others — caused pain. And reports gathered by the center
reveal differences in independent versus government accounts of the executions.
In 2014, Arizona murderer Joseph Wood was given a lethal
injection, but took nearly two hours to die, gasping for breath during that
time. A reporter who witnessed the execution counted 640 gasps but an Attorney
General’s Office spokesperson said Wood was just asleep and snoring, according
to the Arizona Republic.
“Because an execution is an official government function
that uses taxpayer funds and resources, the process requires full transparency
and accountability by government officials,” said Robin Maher, the executive
director of the center.
“Secrecy statutes that prevent media witnesses from attending
executions are contrary to democratic principles that promote public trust,
ensure integrity, and prevent governmental abuse and overreach,” she continued,
in a written statement. “Secrecy also greatly increases the chances that an
execution will be botched because there is no opportunity for outside experts
to fully examine and critique the process.”
Even states that let reporters observe may not allow
witnesses to see preparatory procedures — like pokes for intravenous lines — or
to hear audio from the execution chamber.
Blume said states often have a curtain or glass separating
witnesses from the execution chamber, and that the curtain isn’t pulled until
the execution is ready: condemned prison strapped down with a sheet draped
across the body and I.V. lines placed.
He posited that governments may want to block viewing of
what can be a “lengthy, painful” cutdown to make it “appear like the person
peacefully drifts off to sleep. But it may also protect the condemned’s
privacy, “to not have to endure this with a bunch of people that want to see
him die watching.”
Blume believed someone besides prison staff should view the
insertion, however, like the client’s defense lawyer. He observed that it’s
often defenders who step in when the execution goes bad.
Many of the botched executions documented by the center
involve difficulty finding veins suitable for the intraveneous lines. Condemned
prisoners were stabbed more than a dozen times in some cases, and the execution
was sometimes called off.
An executioner spent about an hour finding a usable vein for
Oklahoma murderer Clayton Lockett in 2014. The Guardian reported
in 2014 that, for the first three minutes after the drugs were delivered, he
“struggled violently, groaned and writhed” — observations not mentioned in the
state’s timeline. About 13 minutes
later, before he was dead, the state closed the blinds from the viewing room
into the execution chamber. Lockett died of a heart attack 30 minutes later.
It’s unclear what Hoosier witnesses will experience. Pahl,
the Department of Correction spokeswoman, didn’t reply to questions about
the agency’s administrative rules about execution proceedings.
Reporters will be standing outdoors.
“A media staging area will be available outside of the
Indiana State Prison and additional information will be provided closer to the
date of the execution,” Pahl wrote.
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