USA - Texas. TDCJ Viewing Policy Reduces Witnesses to Executions.

TDCJ Viewing Policy Reduces Witnesses to Executions. At a time when a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma and secrecy about how Texas prisons obtain lethal injection drugs have increased public scrutiny of the procedure, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is allowing fewer media outlets to attend executions. There are only 5 media seats available in 1 of 2 tiny viewing rooms adjacent to the Texas execution chamber in Huntsville. While some of those seats have long been reserved for specific media outlets, the TDCJ has in the past allowed other reporters to fill empty chairs when those journalists couldn't attend. Now, those seats remain empty, reducing the number of witnesses in the nation's busiest death chamber. About 2 to 3 years ago, TDCJ public affairs officials began more strictly apportioning media seats, said Jason Clark, who became the agency's chief spokesman in 2013. The media seats in the viewing room are the only way members of the public who aren't related to the murder victim or the condemned inmate can obtain independent observations of the controversial procedure. "We are not under any obligation to open media witness slots to any organization who asks to view an execution," Clark said. While the TDCJ argues it is simply following long-standing procedure, media lawyers say the stricter enforcement of the rules prevents transparency. Just before a last-minute stay halted TDCJ's execution of Robert James Campbell last month - the nation's 1st execution scheduled after the mishandled April 29 execution in Oklahoma of Clayton Lockett - 8 media members had requested a seat in the witness room. TDCJ approved seats for reporters from the Associated Press, The Huntsville Item and Houston Chronicle, and from 2 Houston-area TV stations. Requests from reporters for ABC News, The New York Times and The Texas Tribune were denied, and they would not have been allowed to attend even if the other reporters were unable to. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1982, TDCJ has usually reserved 2 of the 5 media seats in the execution viewing room, 1 for the Associated Press and 1 for The Huntsville Item. Decades ago, the other 3 seats could be taken by others who asked, with preference to journalists who were based in the region where the crime occurred. In the 1990s, journalists from The New York Times, a New York CBS affiliate, NBC Dateline and even one from Germany were permitted to observe Texas executions. It's not clear precisely when TDCJ's policy shifted, but Clark said today, if a seat is unclaimed by a local reporter, it will remain empty. "Those slots are reserved for those media organizations from where the crime happened," Clark said. In Oklahoma, there are 12 media seats. In Florida, 10. In both of those states, media witnesses are selected in a lottery system if the number of requests for the seats exceeds the number available.