For the first time in nearly 40 years, the state of Texas conducted an execution without a single media witness. Quintin Jones was executed on May 19, 2021, for a murder committed in September of 1999; the victim was his great-aunt Berthena Bryant. In each of the previous 570 executions carried out since Texas resumed capital punishment in 1982, there had been at least one member of the media present.
Jeremy Desel, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson, called this an “error” and stated, "Somewhere in that mix there was never a phone call made to this office for me to accompany the witnesses across the street into the Huntsville Unit." The Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville pointed to new individuals who were not familiar with the execution process as the reason for the error and said that it would never happen again. Desel also promised a thorough investigation of the incident.
The media has long served as a safeguard against irregularities in the execution process. There have been claims of executioners “sanitizing” their accounts of the execution process as compared to the accounts from direct witnesses from the media. Official accounts of executions often stand in contrast to those from media witnesses, who have reported that prisoners shake, exhibit signs of pulmonary edema, and seem in pain. The lack of media presence at Jones’ death has raised questions about what actually happened in the death chamber.
Robert Dunham, the Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, released a statement following the execution saying, “Texas’s failure last night is destined to become a poster child for the lack of transparency and accountability in the U.S. execution process. It symbolizes why the public continues to lose faith in states’ trustworthiness to properly conduct executions.” Dunham also noted that this is not the first execution that has failed to follow correct protocol. He suggested that such errors display a disregard for public accountability and expose the “veil of secrecy” associated with the execution process.
In 2015, the American Bar Association adopted an Execution Transparency Resolution urging death penalty jurisdictions to ensure that executions are viewable by the media as well as the public. The state of Texas specifically provides for media witnesses in its execution protocol. Many are calling for greater transparency and accountability in the execution process and are stressing the urgency of the need for change. Cassandra Stubbs, Director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project called the lack of media witnesses “disturbing,” and Sister Helen Prejean, an anti-death penalty activist, called the situation “a failure of moral leadership.”