SPJ National: No on ‘secret executions’

Statement by SPJ President Dana Neuts urging lawmakers to vote “no” to Ohio’s proposed HB663

INDIANAPOLIS – The Society of Professional Journalists urges Ohio lawmakers to vote “no” to House Bill 663, the so-called Secret Executions Bill. SPJ joins its Region 4 leaders and the Ohio Newspaper Association in denouncing the bill.

executions

While HB 663’s primary aim is to protect medical professionals who carry out executions and drug makers who make the drugs used in executions, it would also make all information and records related to an execution or death sentence confidential. The legislation, if passed, would make the already difficult job of covering capital punishment more difficult for reporters, which ignores Ohio sunshine laws and compromises transparency.

More specifically, the bill would make information about lethal injection formulations secret, just as Ohio grapples with critical decisions about how to carry out executions while avoiding cruel and unusual treatment of condemned inmates. When it comes to carrying out a death sentence, more transparency and more reporting should be required, not less.

The Ohio House Policy and Legislative Oversight Committee is conducting its second hearing on the bill today and Wednesday, with a possible vote at 3:30 p.m. ET Wednesday at the Columbus Statehouse, Room 115. The bill, introduced Nov. 10, would become law March 20, 2015 if passed.

SPJ urges Ohio journalists and others concerned with open government and sunshine laws to tell lawmakers to vote “no” on this bill. Representatives from the Ohio Newspaper Association and SPJ will be at this week’s hearings about the bill to testify against it.

More from Region 4 blogger Patti Newberry