Federal Judge in Idaho Orders Department of Corrections Must Allow Greater Media Access to Executions

On April 29, 2025, U.S. District Judge Debora K. Grasham ordered the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) to give media wit­ness­es to an exe­cu­tion ​“audio and visu­al access to the prepa­ra­tion and admin­is­tra­tion of the lethal injec­tion drugs.” The rul­ing stems from a December 2024 law­suit filed by the Associated Press, The Idaho Statesman, and East Idaho News, which argued that media out­lets were being uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­hib­it­ed from view­ing ​“key steps” in Idaho’s lethal injec­tion process. Judge Grasham wrote that ​“while it is true that this case con­cerns Idaho’s lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures, it equal­ly con­cerns the public’s First Amendment right of access to the State’s admin­is­tra­tion of the most severe penal­ty enforced by our State.” 

In her order, Judge Grasham not­ed the ​“tra­di­tion of audio and visu­al access to the means and meth­ods used in enact­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is well doc­u­ment­ed,” and con­clud­ed that ​“access to the means and meth­ods of con­duct­ing an exe­cu­tion, specif­i­cal­ly here the prepa­ra­tion and admin­is­tra­tion of lethal injec­tion drugs, is not ancil­lary infor­ma­tion, but rather part of the process that is inex­tri­ca­bly inter­twined with the exe­cu­tion and has been his­tor­i­cal­ly open to the pub­lic.” Idaho’s cur­rent lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion pro­to­col allows media wit­ness­es to observe the pris­on­er as he is brought into the exe­cu­tion cham­ber and placed on a gur­ney, as the IV is insert­ed and con­nect­ed, and the actu­al death. However, media wit­ness­es can­not cur­rent­ly observe the prepa­ra­tion and admin­is­tra­tion of the lethal injec­tion drugs because med­ical team mem­bers enter a sep­a­rate, obscured room. 

An attor­ney for IDOC alleged dur­ing a hear­ing in April 2025 that the pub­lic can rely on prison offi­cials to accu­rate­ly report whether the med­ical and exe­cu­tion team suc­cess­ful­ly pre­pare and admin­is­ter lethal injec­tion drugs. He told the court that keep­ing the med­ical team out­side of pub­lic view was to pro­tect their iden­ti­ties. Judge Grasham sug­gest­ed that med­ical team mem­bers could con­ceal their iden­ti­ties through sim­ple face cov­er­ings, gloves, and hats like those already uti­lized by exe­cu­tion team mem­bers who cur­rent­ly oper­ate with­in sight of media wit­ness­es. According to Judge Grasham, prison author­i­ties failed to estab­lish the secre­cy mea­sures for the med­ical team met a valid penological purpose. 

In ear­ly fil­ings for the news out­lets, attor­ney Wendy Olson wrote, “[a]t its core, this case involves the press’s abil­i­ty to ful­fill its sig­nif­i­cant role in the prop­er func­tion­ing of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment by pro­vid­ing inde­pen­dent pub­lic scruti­ny of the State of Idaho’s exe­cu­tion process.” Ms. Olson point­ed to pre­vi­ous rul­ings from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which estab­lished the pub­lic has the right to view an exe­cu­tion from start to fin­ish, includ­ing a 2012 law­suit from the Associated Press in Idaho. In that case, the court ordered IDOC to allow media wit­ness­es to observe the inser­tion of the IV lines estab­lished for the lethal injec­tion drugs. In December 2024, IDOC spokesper­son Sanda Kuzeta-Cerimagic wrote in an email that ​“IDOC is com­mit­ted to trans­paren­cy in the exe­cu­tion process and will con­tin­ue to pro­vide one of the most trans­par­ent exe­cu­tion process­es in the country.” 

Since the 1970s, Idaho has attempt­ed four lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions, with the most recent attempt in February 2024. At that time, the state attempt­ed to exe­cute Thomas Creech, but the exe­cu­tion was halt­ed after team mem­bers were unable to set an intra­venous (IV) line after an hour of repeat­ed attempts. His attor­neys had warned IDOC offi­cials that his age (then 73) and med­ical con­di­tions, includ­ing Type 2 dia­betes, hyper­ten­sion, and ede­ma, could impact cir­cu­la­tion and vein qual­i­ty. Idaho set anoth­er exe­cu­tion date for Mr. Creech in November 2024, but a fed­er­al dis­trict court issued a stay of exe­cu­tion to allow for addi­tion­al time to con­sid­er Mr. Creech’s legal claims.