NPR uncovered secret execution tapes from Virginia. More remain hidden

[sl8]

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/19/1149547193/secret-execution-tapes-virginia

(8 min. audio at link)

NPR uncovered secret execution tapes from Virginia. More remain hidden

January 19, 2023 4:40 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
Chiara Eisner

On a summer's day in 2006, inside an apartment not far from Virginia's old death chamber, an 82-year-old man handed over a briefcase to an archivist. The bag held four execution recordings so rare, similar tapes from another state had been released just once before in history.

When executions take place, only a few people are permitted to attend as witnesses. Since prisons forbid even those journalists, lawyers and family members from recording audio or images, virtually no physical evidence from their vantage point exists from any state. But they're not the only ones watching. Prison employees also see what happens in the death chamber – and they sometimes tape it.

The cassettes in the briefcase were recorded by staff, and the donor, R. M. Oliver, had worked in Virginia prisons for years. But how that government audio ended up in his bag – and why he privately donated it to the Library of Virginia – is a mystery. Oliver left his last position with the Department of Corrections in Richmond before any of the executions were taped. His family said he took the story to his grave when he died.

[...]

[underpants]

1. Bookmarking. I don't know that I will listen to the tapes

I read something here on DU maybe last week about the number of botched executions that still go on today.

I have other thoughts but I’m going to refrain. I’m glad Virginia isn’t doing that anymore.


"I'd like to express that what is about to occur here is a murder,"

[3Hotdogs]

2. Ghouls.

[femmedem]

3. I've always felt that one reason to oppose the death penalty

is what it does to the people who have to carry it out.

I read more about the executions of innocent people, of disparate sentencing, and of botched executions which result in torture. But this is one of the few times I've read about the emotional toll it takes on the people whose job it is to commit and witness the executions.