Judge orders Tennessee to expand media access to executions

A Tennessee judge has ordered the state to provide journalists expanded access to execution proceedings, finding that its restrictions on news media witnesses likely violated state law and the First Amendment. 

In last Friday’s ruling, Chancellor I’Ashea L. Myles of the Davidson County Chancery Court sided with arguments made by attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, who represented several news outlets in a lawsuit challenging the state’s media witness protocols. The judge agreed with the media coalition that journalists cannot provide the public with accurate information about how the state carries out the death penalty if state officials only permit them access to a small portion of the proceedings. 

“It is in the public interest to ensure that the death penalty in the State of Tennessee both brings closure to victims and is done in an appropriate fashion,” Chancellor Myles wrote in her 29-page decision. “Having an independent media to report fully on the events of executions serves the public interest.”

This ruling is “important because it gives the public through these official witnesses — the media and others — a fuller understanding of what is taking place during the execution,” Reporters Committee Local Legal Initiative Attorney Paul McAdoo told WBIR, a TEGNA-owned station that was part of the media coalition. “When the state executes people under the law, it’s important to make sure it’s done in a humane way, that it is done in compliance with constitutional standards. And this increased access allows for more oversight of that process.”

Since 1994, Tennessee law has permitted seven members of the news media to witness executions. Tennessee Department of Correction protocols, however, significantly restrict what those media witnesses can observe before, during, and after executions by lethal injection or electrocution. 

On behalf of The Associated Press, Gannett, Nashville Public Media, Nashville Public Radio, Scripps Media, Six Rivers Media, and TEGNA, McAdoo and Reporters Committee attorney Beth Soja and legal fellow Allyson Veile filed a lawsuit in October arguing that those restrictions violate state law, the state constitution, and the First Amendment. The lawsuit asked the court to order the state to permit journalists to observe the entirety of future execution proceedings. 

In her decision granting the media coalition’s request for a temporary injunction, Chancellor Myles highlighted the “significant role” that public access to executions plays “in promoting transparency, accountability, and public confidence in the administration of capital punishment in the United States.” She concluded that the news outlets were likely to prevail in their claims that the media access restrictions violated both the First Amendment and state law.

In its opposition papers, the state had argued in part that providing expanded media access to capital punishment proceedings would reveal the identities of government employees responsible for carrying out executions, raising safety concerns. However, Chancellor Myles found that those concerns could be addressed while allowing members of the news media to access the full execution proceedings. 

The judge’s order requires the state Department of Correction to make several changes to its protocols for executions by lethal injection and electrocution. It states that members of the execution team, including the physician, will be required to wear protective apparel covering their ID badge and hair to conceal their identities. 

The order also requires the curtains of the chamber to be opened before the condemned enters and to remain open until after the pronouncement of death, permitting members of the news media to witness the entire execution, rather than the 10 to 12 minutes of the proceeding that they were previously allowed to observe. 

The ruling is the latest victory in the Reporters Committee’s push to help journalists fight for transparency around capital punishment. 

Last year, Reporters Committee attorneys 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 a death row inmate. The lawsuit prompted the state to reveal that it paid $900,000 for the drug. Months later, on behalf of a news media coalition, Reporters Committee attorneys filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of an Indiana law that prohibits journalists from witnessing executions. That lawsuit is now on appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Tennessee has four executions scheduled for 2026, including one set for May 21.

To learn more about the judge’s ruling, check out reporting from The Associated Press, the Nashville Banner, The Tennessean, WBIR, and the Johnson City Press.