Families of executed prisoners want death penalty tapes made public

NPR, December 20, 2023: Families of executed prisoners want death penalty tapes made public

“Amy Taylor kept the details of how Robert Gleason Jr. died from their son for as long as she could. But at age 10, Eian Taylor searched for his father's name online at school and saw the headlines.

“‘Convicted Murderer Who Pleaded for Death Electrocuted in Virginia,’ stated one, from 2013.

“‘Va. killer shows bits of humanity before execution,’ read another.

“After Eian came home that day with questions, his mother told him everything she knew. But she didn't tell him that Virginia had made an audio recording of Gleason's execution behind the scenes. That's because she hadn't heard about it. No one had informed their family that prison employees recorded 31 execution tapes between 1987 and 2017 — including the one about Gleason.

“Execution tapes are rare and have only been published twice before. In 2009, a judge ordered the Georgia Department of Corrections to release 19 execution tapes. Earlier this year, in January, NPR published four execution tapes from Virginia. Reporters found them after a former employee of the Virginia Department of Corrections donated them to the Library of Virginia's archives in 2006.

“But when NPR discovered that the Department of Corrections had recorded more tapes, and asked to review them under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, the state denied the request — and took back the four tapes from the library.

“NPR sued the state to obtain all 31 of the secret execution tapes. In the first hearing of that case, in August, an attorney for the Virginia attorney general's office argued that the state was holding the tapes back partly because they were confidential prisoner records. The state wanted to protect the privacy of the executed prisoners and their surviving family members, she indicated. The judge ruled in favor of the Department of Corrections.”

Additional reading:

NPR, May 11, 2023: Virginia hid execution files from the public. Here's what they don't want you to see

Death Penalty Information Center, Updated December 6, 2023: Botched Executions

Democracy Now, July 17, 2007: The Execution Tapes: Georgia’s Secret Audio Recordings of Two Executions

StoryCorps, January 1, 2001: Execution Tapes