In a victory for the media and advocates of open government, a unanimous
three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled
on March 18, 2019 that Alabama must disclose key portions of its highly
secretive lethal-injection execution protocol to the public.
The Associated
Press, the Montgomery Advertiser, and Alabama Media Group had sued for access
to the protocol, which came under intense scrutiny in the wake of Alabama’s
failed attempt to execute Doyle Lee Hamm (pictured) in February 2018.
Hamm, who has terminal cancer, challenged Alabama’s execution protocol. He
argued that his veins had been compromised by his illness and executing him by
lethal injection would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
The courts
permitted the execution to proceed after Alabama said it would not attempt to
insert an IV-line in Hamm’s arms or upper extremities.
On February 22, 2018,
executioners tried and failed for 2 1/2 hours to set an intravenous execution
line. Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeffrey Dunn called off
the execution but told the media, “I wouldn’t characterize what we had tonight
as a problem.”
Dunn repeatedly asserted the state had followed its execution
protocol and claimed the execution had been halted only because the late court
rulings in the case did not leave corrections personnel sufficient time to
execute Hamm before his death warrant would have expired.
Hamm filed a federal
civil-rights lawsuit seeking to prevent Alabama from attempting to execute him
a 2nd time. As part of that suit, he filed a doctor’s report—the only public
document describing the circumstances of the execution attempt—that indicated
execution personnel had unsuccessfully inserted IV needles more than 10 times
into Hamm’s feet, legs, and right groin, causing bleeding in his groin, and
likely puncturing his bladder, causing blood in his urine.
Shortly thereafter,
Hamm and the state reached a confidential settlement in which Alabama agreed
not to seek another execution date, the court records of the case would be
sealed, Hamm would dismiss his lawsuit, and Hamm and his lawyers would not
disclose any additional information about the case.
In the aftermath, the three
media outlets filed a motion to gain access to the protocol and execution
records. A federal district court ruled in their favor in May 2018.
Alabama appealed that ruling, arguing that the lethal-injection protocol had
never been formally filed with a lower court, and therefore was not a court
record subject to public access. The appeals court rejected that argument, with
Judge Charles Wilson writing: “Alabama’s lethal injection protocol may not have
been formally filed under the rushed timeline of Hamm’s approaching execution,
but the protocol constitutes a judicial record subject to the common law right
of access because it was submitted to the district court to resolve disputed
substantive motions in the litigation, was discussed and analyzed by all
parties in evidentiary hearings and arguments, and was unambiguously integral
to the court’s resolution of the substantive motions in Hamm’s as-applied
challenge to the protocol.”
The decision also addressed the importance of
transparency to the public, saying “Judicial records provide grounds upon which
a court relies in deciding cases, and thus the public has a valid interest in
accessing these records to ensure the continued integrity and transparency of
our governmental and judicial offices.”
Alabama’s execution secrecy has been at the core of several other execution
controversies.
In December 2016, execution witnesses reported that Ronald Smith
clenched his fists and gasped repeatedly for nearly 15 minutes.
After the
execution, Dunn told the public only that the state had “followed [its]
protocol.” State officials later refused to provide any documentation about the
execution.
In February 2019, late disclosure of its secret protocol provision
mandating that a Christian chaplain—and no other religious adviser—be present
in the execution chamber led to the controversial execution of Muslim prisoner
Domineque Ray without affording him access to an imam at the time of his
execution.
Source: Death Penalty Information Center, March 20, 2019
⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us:
deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.
Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde