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The Nevada Press Association has filed a federal lawsuit against Nevada state officials and the Nevada Department of Corrections challenging limitations the state’s execution protocol places on the media’s ability to witness and report on executions.
In a complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada on July 23, 2021, the ACLU of Nevada, representing the press association, argued that the state’s execution protocol violates the media and the public’s First Amendment right “to observe and hear [an] execution in its entirety.” The complaint asks the court to direct Nevada to amend its execution procedures so that “witnesses will be able to observe [the condemned prisoner] from the moment he enters the Execution Chamber to his death” and “be able to hear all sounds in the Execution Chamber from the moment [the prisoner] enters the Chamber until his death.”
The press association filed the lawsuit against the backdrop of Nevada’s efforts to execute death-row prisoner Zane Floyd. Floyd’s execution, originally scheduled for July 26, 2021, has been stayed while the state courts rule on a motion to disqualify the Clark County District Attorney’s office from the case. Clark County prosecutors have asked the trial court to reconsider its order granting the stay.
“The press are the people’s representatives, and you need to ensure the press has complete access,” Nevada Press Association executive director Richard Karpel told the Associated Press. “It’s a huge deal when the state takes a life. It’s really important that everyone understand everything about the process.”
When Dennis Perry stood with his defense team on the steps of the Brunswick, Georgia courthouse (pictured) after a trial judge dismissed all charges against him, he was a free man, exonerated of the racially motivated murders of a deacon and his wife in a local Black church in 1985. His case was one of at least four death-penalty prosecutions involving misconduct by Brunswick Judicial Circuit Assistant District Attorney John B. Johnson III. And it was the latest of more than 30 exonerations across the country since January 2019 in which police or prosecutors sought the death penalty against innocent defendants or threatened defendants or witnesses with the death penalty unless they falsely confessed or provided false testimony against others.
On July 19, 2021, Glynn County Superior Court Chief Judge Stephen G. Scarlett Sr. granted a prosecution motion to dismiss the charges against Perry. Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Keith Higgins, who took office in January, said “[N]ew evidence indicates that someone else murdered Harold and Thelma Swain.”
