States Continue to Push for Execution Secrecy Amid Legal Challenges

For the past 15 years, as state after state has passed exe­cu­tion secre­cy laws, the pub­lic has faced more ques­tions than answers about how elect­ed offi­cials use their tax­pay­er dol­lars for the most seri­ous pun­ish­ment. Every active death penal­ty state now has a law shield­ing key infor­ma­tion about exe­cu­tions, such as the source of lethal injec­tion drugs, the iden­ti­ties of exe­cu­tion team mem­bers, and whether those indi­vid­u­als have ade­quate train­ing. In 2026, as botched exe­cu­tions con­tin­ue to make head­lines, mul­ti­ple states have defend­ed their secre­cy poli­cies against legal chal­lenges and con­cerns raised by advo­cates and the media. 

Indiana’s Media Ban Upheld, Diverging from Related Challenge in Tennessee

Unobstructed media access to exe­cu­tions is crit­i­cal because the media observes what the pub­lic can­not. States gen­er­al­ly pro­hib­it cit­i­zens from attend­ing exe­cu­tions, so the media becomes the public’s watch­dog, pro­vid­ing impor­tant infor­ma­tion about how the gov­ern­ment is fol­low­ing the law and using tax­pay­er funds. Without jour­nal­ists see­ing and hear­ing every step of the process, the pub­lic can only rely on offi­cial state accounts, which often refuse to acknowl­edge prob­lems regard­less of the evidence.

Yet Indiana bars jour­nal­ists from attend­ing exe­cu­tions unless they are per­son­al­ly invit­ed by the con­demned pris­on­er. This is the strictest media wit­ness pol­i­cy in an active death penal­ty state in the coun­try (matched only by Wyoming, which has not con­duct­ed an exe­cu­tion since 1992). A 2024 DPI sur­vey of state exe­cu­tion poli­cies found that all oth­er states per­mit media wit­ness­es. The num­ber of allowed media wit­ness­es ranges from 2 to 12, or the state’s dis­cre­tion; the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, which con­ducts its exe­cu­tions in Indiana, allows 10 jour­nal­ists to observe. 

In 2025, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) sued Indiana on behalf of five news out­lets, includ­ing the Indiana Capital Chronicle and the Associated Press, argu­ing that the state’s pol­i­cy vio­lates the media’s First Amendment right to access exe­cu­tions. The fed­er­al dis­trict court denied their request for a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed that deci­sion by a 2 – 1 vote on June 5, 2026. Judge Michael Scudder, joined by Judge Doris Pryor, held that the press does not have a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to view exe­cu­tions. The U.S. Supreme Court has not weighed in on this issue, and the new rul­ing con­tra­dicts a 2002 Ninth Circuit deci­sion. 

The Seventh Circuit expressed skep­ti­cism about the val­ue of the media’s role. “[P]ublic access to exe­cu­tions does not clear­ly play a ​‘sig­nif­i­cant pos­i­tive role in the func­tion­ing’ of the process,” Judge Scudder wrote, “[n]or does more open pub­lic scruti­ny of an exe­cu­tion ​‘pro­vide a check on the activ­i­ties of judges and lit­i­gants’ or ​‘fos­ter more accu­rate fact find­ing.’” The major­i­ty acknowl­edged that ​“plain­tiffs make the fair and com­pelling point that increased scruti­ny may lead to more humane and com­pe­tent­ly admin­is­tered exe­cu­tions,” but endorsed Indiana’s argu­ment that media pres­ence could be ​“poten­tial­ly harm­ful” because ​“allow­ing unin­vit­ed strangers with no imme­di­ate con­nec­tion to the under­ly­ing crime to watch a pris­on­er die risks offend­ing the dig­ni­ty of their final moments.”

The major­i­ty also con­tend­ed that a ban on observ­ing exe­cu­tions did not inhib­it jour­nal­ists’ abil­i­ty to cov­er them. ​“No aspect of the Indiana statute or the Department of Correction imple­ment­ing guide­lines restrain media report­ing on exe­cu­tions,” Judge Scudder wrote. ​“Journalists remain free to inter­view wit­ness­es, report on any aspect of the pro­ceed­ing, and com­ment as they wish on the State’s choice to allow cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment or to exe­cute a particular person.” 

Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi dis­agreed in dis­sent. In her view, the press and pub­lic have a qual­i­fied First Amendment right to wit­ness exe­cu­tions — and their role is of para­mount impor­tance. “[I]n the exe­cu­tion chamber…the government’s author­i­ty is at its peak and so is its account­abil­i­ty to its cit­i­zens,” she wrote. ​“Transparency and checks on gov­ern­ment pow­er are essen­tial in this con­text.” Because the respon­si­bil­i­ties of dai­ly life can pre­vent mem­bers of the pub­lic from engag­ing with devel­op­ments in the crim­i­nal legal sys­tem, ​“media func­tions as a sur­ro­gate” for their inter­ests. She empha­sized that ​“the pub­lic can­not over­see what it cannot observe.” 

While the major­i­ty char­ac­ter­ized exe­cu­tions as essen­tial­ly pri­vate since the 1800s, negat­ing any pub­lic right of access, Judge Jackson-Akiwumi chal­lenged that his­to­ry. She not­ed that as exe­cu­tions moved from the pub­lic to the pri­vate sphere, state laws still pro­vid­ed for the atten­dance of press and des­ig­nat­ed cit­i­zens, and today vir­tu­al­ly all exe­cu­tions are attend­ed by at least one jour­nal­ist — Indiana being the excep­tion. She also argued that the pub­lic has a right of access to exe­cu­tions under an orig­i­nal­ist analy­sis, which pur­ports to inter­pret con­sti­tu­tion­al rights based on their orig­i­nal mean­ing, since ​“exe­cu­tions were com­mu­nal activ­i­ties when the First Amendment was rat­i­fied in 1791.” 

A Tennessee court reached the same con­clu­sion as Judge Jackson-Akiwumi in January. RCFP led a chal­lenge for sev­en media out­lets, includ­ing some of the same plain­tiffs in the Indiana case, against Tennessee’s pol­i­cy that only allowed jour­nal­ists to observe lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions once the IV had already been insert­ed and before death was offi­cial­ly declared. Many botched exe­cu­tions in recent years have involved state offi­cials’ fail­ure to prop­er­ly place IV lines. Chancellor I’Ashea L. Myles grant­ed a tem­po­rary injunc­tion order­ing the state to per­mit jour­nal­ists to view the entire­ty of the execution. 

The sched­uled May 21 exe­cu­tion of Tony Carruthers — only for the impor­tance of unre­strict­ed press access to again be demon­strat­ed. The Tennessee Supreme Court’s order rein­stat­ed the pre­vi­ous pro­to­col, pre­vent­ing media from watch­ing state offi­cials insert the IV into Mr. Carruthers’ skin. Only his attor­ney Maria DeLiberato wit­nessed what came next. Officials punc­tured Mr. Carruthers at least a dozen times all over his body with­out suc­cess before the exe­cu­tion was called off over an hour lat­er. A doc­tor attempt­ed to set a cen­tral line in Mr. Carruthers’ chest cav­i­ty despite not hav­ing done so in over a decade, which could cause ​“life-threat­en­ing com­pli­ca­tions.” Ms. DeLiberato said her client was ​“winc­ing and groan­ing” as blood leaked into the IV tubes. She called for full media access, say­ing, ​“There was no trans­paren­cy here and this botched exe­cu­tion showed why there must be.” 

South Carolina Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Secrecy Law

In South Carolina, advo­cates are chal­leng­ing a dif­fer­ent aspect of exe­cu­tion secre­cy: harsh crim­i­nal and civ­il penal­ties for those who reveal details about the process. The state tight­ened its secre­cy law in 2023 to hide ​“iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion” about any­one con­tribut­ing to its exe­cu­tions — from the moment drugs or med­ical equip­ment are man­u­fac­tured to the moment they are used — with up to three years in prison for vio­la­tors. Individual par­tic­i­pants or com­pa­nies can also sue any­one who dis­clos­es their iden­ti­ty. The state has argued that ​“iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion” includes such details as drug man­u­fac­tur­ing and expi­ra­tion dates, costs, and main­te­nance or repairs done on exe­cu­tion equip­ment. The new law enabled the state to pur­chase exe­cu­tion drugs and con­duct its first exe­cu­tions in over a decade begin­ning in 2025. 

The American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina (ACLU-SC) com­piled thou­sands of pages of ​“iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion” about the state’s exe­cu­tion process through records requests and court doc­u­ments, which it sought to release it to the pub­lic — but refrained in the face of the law’s threat of pros­e­cu­tion. The ACLU-SC instead sued the state, argu­ing that the law oper­ates ​“for the express pur­pose of sup­press­ing par­tic­u­lar views: specif­i­cal­ly, those crit­i­cal of lethal injec­tion.” The orga­ni­za­tion con­tends that the law uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly chills speech, as ​“would-be whistle­blow­ers and con­sci­en­tious objec­tors have been scared silent.” 

On June 16, the South Carolina Supreme Court heard oral argu­ments on the scope of the secre­cy law. The state’s attor­ney, Grayson Lambert, sought to con­vince the court and the ACLU-SC that the law only pun­ish­es exe­cu­tion team par­tic­i­pants who leak con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion, not any­one who receives or dis­sem­i­nates it. Additionally, any infor­ma­tion that is already pub­licly avail­able is fair game. Under that def­i­n­i­tion, Mr. Lambert said that the ACLU-SC could pub­lish with­out fear. ​“If the ACLU walked out of court this morn­ing and hand­ed a reporter on the cour­t­house steps that entire doc­u­ment pro­duc­tion, the ACLU is not going to be pros­e­cut­ed,” he said. 

While the ACLU-SC’s attor­ney Allen Chaney said the orga­ni­za­tion approved of that def­i­n­i­tion, he sought a ​“defin­i­tive and clear opin­ion” from the court con­firm­ing it so that the state could not renege its posi­tion under a future admin­is­tra­tion. The law itself says only that “[a] per­son shall not know­ing­ly dis­close the iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion,” with­out the specifics Mr. Lambert mentioned. 

The state supreme court’s deci­sion will clar­i­fy only a com­po­nent of the ACLU-SC’s law­suit, which was filed in fed­er­al court. Mr. Chaney said the ACLU-SC will like­ly con­tin­ue to pur­sue its fed­er­al claims after the state court issues its decision. 

Idaho Seeks Police Officers for Anonymous Firing Squad

On July 1, Idaho will offi­cial­ly become the first state in the nation to autho­rize the fir­ing squad as its pri­ma­ry exe­cu­tion method — and accord­ing to a new pro­to­col, police offi­cers will be the ones to shoot the pris­on­ers. The state is seek­ing six offi­cers with at least three years of expe­ri­ence each. Only the state pris­ons direc­tor and deputy pris­ons chief will know their names. 

According to the pro­to­col, the police offi­cers may not have been dis­ci­plined for firearms or use of force vio­la­tions in the past year. However, giv­en the state’s secre­cy law, pris­on­ers and their attor­neys may be blocked from access­ing the offi­cers’ full disciplinary records. 

Idaho also took steps ear­li­er this year to fur­ther shield exe­cu­tions from pub­lic scruti­ny. A bill signed March 31 exempt­ed exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures from pub­lic notice and com­ment require­ments under state law, and extend­ed anonymi­ty to ​“any per­son or enti­ty that pro­vides tech­ni­cal assis­tance dur­ing the execution process.” 

Officials told Kevin Fixler of the Idaho Statesman that the goal of recruit­ing police offi­cers for exe­cu­tions was to min­i­mize stress on cor­rec­tions per­son­nel. Idaho has nev­er con­duct­ed a fir­ing squad exe­cu­tion before, and the only states to do so in the mod­ern era are Utah and South Carolina. Idaho’s leg­is­la­tors adopt­ed the new method after the February 2024 botched lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion of Thomas Creech, who sur­vived an hour of unsuc­cess­ful attempts to set an IV line. 

Sgt. Bryan Lovell, pres­i­dent of the Idaho Fraternal Order of Police, told Mr. Fixler that despite pop­u­lar belief, law enforce­ment are not nec­es­sar­i­ly bet­ter suit­ed to han­dle shoot­ing deaths. While police train to use dead­ly force in emer­gency sit­u­a­tions, they must avoid it unless absolute­ly nec­es­sary, Sgt. Lovell said. And like cor­rec­tions offi­cers, police too can expe­ri­ence severe trau­ma after using dead­ly force. ​“I don’t want peo­ple to con­vo­lute things about why peo­ple become cops, includ­ing for car­ry­ing out an exe­cu­tion,” said Sgt. Lovell. ​“It’s not the goal, and very far from any duties that any law enforce­ment would be involved in.” 

Conclusion

“There is no dig­ni­ty in secret exe­cu­tions,” incar­cer­at­ed jour­nal­ist Jeremy Busby wrote in an arti­cle for The Intercept about Indiana’s media ban. Rejecting the claims of the state and Seventh Circuit, Mr. Busby argued that dig­ni­ty can only be achieved with trans­paren­cy, ​“not only for the con­demned but also for the peo­ple being asked to fund irreversible punishments.”