Alabama only state to limit media to 1 witness at execution

Alabama only state to limit media to 1 witness at execution

SeattlePI.com

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama will be the third state to carry out an execution during the COVID-19 pandemic and will be the only prison system to reduce the number of news media witnesses to a single reporter.

The Alabama Department of Corrections said because of COVID-19 precautions only one reporter, a representative of The Associated Press, will be allowed to witness Thursday's lethal injection of Willie B. Smith. The state in the past allowed five media witnesses, although the number of outlets sending reporters is sometimes less than that.

Only the federal government, Texas, and Missouri have carried out executions since the pandemic began last year. None reduced the number of media witnesses to a single reporter.

There have been 19 executions carried out since April of 2020, according to a database maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center. All of them were attended by multiple reporters with the exception of one lethal injection in Texas where the prison system neglected to notify reporters it was time to carry out the punishment.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said the media serves an “irreplaceable function” as "the public’s witnesses and play a vital role in holding states accountable when executions visibly go wrong.”

“If an execution is not safe enough to be witnessed by the full complement of reporters, the remedy is not to decrease accountability and increase secrecy by excluding media witnesses who would otherwise be permitted to attend. If an execution is not safe enough for witnesses, it is not safe enough to go forward at all,” Dunham wrote in an email.

Paige Windsor, the executive editor of the Montgomery Advertiser, said the news organization disagreed "that the press restrictions were...

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