The US state of Tennessee refuses to publish its new enforcement manual

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE —

Just days after Tennessee announced it had a new manual for executing death row inmates, the state’s top prison officials said they would not make the document public.

The Tennessee Department of Corrections had asked The Associated Press to file a public records request for a copy of the latest execution manual, known as the protocol. However, the agency this week rejected the AP’s request, saying it had to keep the entire document secret to protect the identities of the executioner and others involved.

The decision to maintain secrecy differs from how the state has handled similar requests in the past, but reflects efforts across the United States to prevent public access to executions, particularly after activists anti-death penalty activists used dossiers to expose the problems.

Here’s what you need to know:

What is an execution protocol?

The protocol is usually a detailed set of procedures describing how the state executes death row inmates. Tennessee was operating under a 2018 protocol that included instructions on selecting enforcement team personnel and the training they had to undergo. It explains how lethal injection drugs should be purchased, stored and administered. He gave instructions on the inmate’s housing, diet and visits in the days leading up to his execution. It provided instructions on how to choose media witnesses.

For lethal injection, the 2018 protocol called for a series of three drugs administered in sequence.

The new version unveiled last week requires only a single dose of pentobarbital. But that’s all we know about the revised protocol.

What reason does Tennessee give for not publishing the new protocol?

In an email Monday, Tennessee Corrections spokeswoman Kayla Hackney told the AP that “the protocol is not a public record” and cited a Tennessee law that makes identity confidential. people carrying out executions.

However, that same law states that the existence of confidential information in a record is not a reason to deny access to it, noting that confidential information must be redacted.

What has Tennessee done in the past?

In 2018, the Tennessee Corrections Agency provided a redacted copy of the protocol to an AP reporter via email.

In 2007, an earlier version of the protocol was treated as a public document and provided to the AP after former Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, announced a surprise halt to executions. A journalist’s review of the 100-page “Execution Manual” revealed a jumble of contradictory instructions mixing new instructions for lethal injection with those for electrocution.

Why did Tennessee update its protocol?

Executions have been suspended in Tennessee since 2022, when the state admitted it was not following the 2018 protocol. Among other things, the Department of Corrections was not routinely testing the potency and purity of execution drugs.

An independent review of lethal injection practices in the state later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed since 2018 had been fully tested. The state attorney general’s office later admitted in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing lethal injection drugs in Tennessee “falsely testified” under oath that officials tested the chemicals as required .

So what is all this secrecy?

Executions in the United States remain at historic lows for years, but the small group of states that still carry out the death penalty have only increased the secrecy surrounding the procedures, particularly over how and where the state obtains drugs used for lethal injections.

Many states assert that secrecy is essential to protect the safety of those involved in the execution process. Yet in a 2018 report, the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit, found that this argument often led these states to refuse to provide information on the qualifications of their teams enforcement and some courts have criticized these arguments due to a lack of evidence demonstrating that more public disclosure would result in threats against prison officials.

Kelley Henry, head of the federal public defender’s habeas unit that represents many of Tennessee’s death row inmates, called the state’s refusal to issue the new protocol “mystifying” in this context.

“The secrecy that masked the old execution protocol created a culture of incompetence and lack of accountability,” she said in an email.