Indiana Capital Chronicle lawsuit seeks access to cost of execution drug
An attorney from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sued the Indiana Department of Correction yesterday on behalf of the Indiana Capital Chronicle over the agency’s refusal to disclose how much it paid to acquire a new lethal injection drug that recently enabled the state to carry out its first execution in 15 years.
The lawsuit is the second case that Kris Cundiff, the Reporters Committee’s Local Legal Initiative attorney in Indiana, has filed on behalf of a local news outlet in the last month. The Reporters Committee launched the Local Legal Initiative — which is also active in Colorado, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee — in the state last year to provide journalists and news organizations with the free legal support they need to pursue enterprise and investigative stories in their communities.
The Capital Chronicle’s lawsuit, filed in Marion County, alleges that the IDOC violated Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act when it denied the nonprofit news organization’s request for records showing the amount of taxpayer money the state spent to procure the lethal injection drug pentobarbital last summer.
Indiana officials had previously attributed the state’s 15-year suspension of the death penalty to its inability to acquire lethal injection drugs. The hiatus ended in December, when the state used pentobarbital to execute death row inmate Joseph E. Corcoran, who was convicted of murdering four people in 1997.
“The people of Indiana should not be left in the dark when the government exercises one of its greatest powers: the authority to execute one of its citizens,” Cundiff said. “The records at issue in this lawsuit belong to the public, and they should be promptly released to help the public better understand how much public money it costs to carry out the death penalty in Indiana.”
The Capital Chronicle’s case comes roughly a month after Cundiff filed the first lawsuit brought with support from the Indiana Local Legal Initiative on behalf of the Morgan County Correspondent. In that case, the weekly newspaper alleges that a local school board just southwest of Indianapolis violated Indiana’s Open Door Law by taking unlawful official action in a private meeting when filling a vacant board seat.
The Reporters Committee launched the Local Legal Initiative in 2019 with a generous investment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Cundiff’s role as the Indiana Local Legal Initiative attorney builds upon the impactful work Reporters Committee attorneys have previously done on behalf of journalists and news outlets in the state.
In 2018, for example, Reporters Committee attorneys helped WTHR-TV sue a local school district to access public records concerning the suspension of a high school football coach. That lawsuit ultimately resulted in a landmark Indiana Supreme Court decision holding that agencies must provide specific facts explaining why a public employee is suspended, fired, or otherwise disciplined — a ruling that increases transparency across the state.
More recently, the Reporters Committee and a coalition of six journalism and news organizations filed a federal lawsuit to block the enforcement of an Indiana law that makes it a crime to approach within 25 feet of a police officer after being told to withdraw. In September, a federal judge ruled in favor of the media coalition, finding the law unconstitutionally vague.
Learn more about the Capital Chronicle’s lawsuit.
The Reporters Committee regularly files friend-of-the-court briefs and its attorneys represent journalists and news organizations pro bono in court cases that involve First Amendment freedoms, the newsgathering rights of journalists and access to public information. Stay up-to-date on our work by signing up for our newsletters and following us on Bluesky, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and X.