美国国家公共电台 NPR Supreme Court Pressed For Sealed Documents In Death Penalty Case（在线收听）

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The U.S. Supreme Court, which has been bitterly divided over the use of the death penalty in recent years, is now hiding a part of that dispute from public view. In a rare move, the court sealed and significantly redacted documents relating to Christopher Price, who was executed by the state of Alabama last week. The redacted material involves the drugs and the protocol the state uses in executions. NPR and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have filed a motion with the Supreme Court requesting it to unseal those records. NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg is involved in that motion and joins us. Nina, thanks so much for being with us.

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Oh, it's my pleasure, Scott.

SIMON: What can you tell us about the sealed documents?

TOTENBERG: Well, Christopher Price wanted to be executed by nitrogen gas instead of midazolam, which is a very controversial drug which he claimed cause excruciating pain. And the state of Alabama insisted on secrecy about the drugs and the protocol and the evidence. And if the defense lawyers wanted to get the case to the Supreme Court, they tell me, they had to agree to sealing all the documents. That was the price of admission that Alabama was demanding. But when it got to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court justices certainly didn't have to agree to blacking out most of the arguments in the briefs (ph), but they did that. And when you look at those briefs and you see all the words and the sentences, most of the brief's just blacked out. It's highly unusual, and it's quite a shock.

SIMON: I mean, other states and courts have talked about lethal injection drugs. Why the secrecy?

TOTENBERG: I don't know. And when I contacted the state of Alabama, they wouldn't tell me. In the briefs, they say they want confidentiality. And the only suggestion is that the reason was - that they gave to me - was to protect the correctional personnel. But the defense lawyers say they never wanted the identities of the correctional personnel made public.

SIMON: This is going to sound naive, but does the public have the right to all decisions, arguments and records from the Supreme Court?

TOTENBERG: Well, that's why NPR went to court - and the Reporters Committee. And we can only hope that the justices, upon further reflection, will do what they've always done in the past pretty much, and that is make arguments public. Among other things, they make them public so that other lawyers will know what arguments were accepted and what weren't. And that's also so because the public will understand the reasoning of the court's decisions and have confidence in the system and its transparency.

SIMON: Nina, given all of your time covering the U.S. Supreme Court and legal questions, this is rare. What do you make of it?

TOTENBERG: Really, I don't know what to make of it. After all, the Supreme Court didn't seal any of the briefs in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971. And that case involved claims of national security. It didn't even seal most of the record in that case. It just sealed parts of the appendix. And in this case, one of the defense lawyers told me that he couldn't even disclose to me the testimony of the deposition given by an expert witness on the Alabama protocols just a week ago in an Atlanta law firm. You know, let me add here that in 2018, Chief Justice Roberts called the judiciary the most transparent branch of government. And the Supreme Court has long upheld the right of access to a wide range of judicial proceedings and records for all the reasons that I have just enumerated.

SIMON: NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg, thanks so much.

TOTENBERG: You're welcome.