Media coalition challenges Indiana ban on press access to executions
A media coalition represented by attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is challenging an Indiana law that prohibits news reporters from witnessing executions, arguing in a federal lawsuit that the ban violates the First Amendment.
The lawsuit, filed Monday, comes as Indiana is just weeks away from executing its second death row inmate since ending a 15-year pause of the death penalty last year.
On behalf of The Associated Press, the Indiana Capital Chronicle, Gannett, WISH-TV, and TEGNA, Reporters Committee attorneys are asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana to rule that the state’s exclusion of media witnesses is unconstitutional and to block its enforcement.
“We are bringing this lawsuit on behalf of members of the news media who have a duty to hold the government accountable when it carries out its ultimate punishment in the public’s name,” said Kris Cundiff, the Reporters Committee’s Local Legal Initiative attorney for Indiana, who is part of a team of attorneys representing the media coalition in the case. “We’re asking the court to immediately strike down this law so the news media can provide the public with the impartial, complete accounts of executions that it deserves.”
Indiana is one of just two death penalty states that bans news media witnesses at executions. Last December, members of the press were prohibited from attending Indiana’s lethal injection of death row inmate Joseph Corcoran, who was convicted of murdering four people in 1997. It was the first time the state had killed a prisoner in 15 years, and the first time it used a single drug — pentobarbital — to carry out an execution.
The next execution is scheduled for May 20, when the state is set to end the life of Benjamin Ritchie, who was convicted of killing a police officer in 2002.
In its lawsuit, the media coalition argues that the state’s ban on media witnesses deprives journalists of their qualified First Amendment right to attend and observe executions on behalf of the public. The coalition also alleges that the ban unconstitutionally singles out members of the news media for disfavorable treatment, noting that the state’s media witness policy allows friends and family of the condemned, among others, to attend executions while explicitly restricting access for the press.
As the lawsuit states, excluding the news media “leaves the public with an incomplete understanding of the proceedings.”
The lawsuit is part of a broader Reporters Committee push to help journalists fight government efforts to hide execution proceedings and records from the public.
Earlier this year, Cundiff sued the Indiana Department of Correction on behalf of the Indiana Capital Chronicle to access information about how much the state spent to acquire the lethal injection drug it used to kill Corcoran last year. That lawsuit prompted the state to reveal that it paid $900,000 for the drug. Cundiff is still negotiating for access to more information about the acquisition of the drug, including how much of it was purchased.
To learn more about the media coalition’s lawsuit, check out coverage in the Indiana Capital Chronicle, The Indianapolis Star, and The Associated Press.