Officials want audio tapes of executions to remain secret
Corrections department pulls back recordings after NPR airs story
RICHMOND, Va. — On a 1989 audio recording crackling with static, an inmate is barely audible as he offers his last words before he is executed in Virginia’s electric chair.
“I would like to express that what is about to take place ... is a murder,” Alton Waye — who was convicted of raping and murdering a 61-year-old woman — can be heard saying, before a prison employee clumsily tries to repeat what Waye said into a tape recorder.
“And that he forgives the people who’s involved in this murder. And that I don’t hate nobody and that I love them,” the employee says.
The recording of Waye’s execution, which was recently published by NPR, is one of at least 35 audio tapes in the possession of the Virginia Department of Corrections documenting executions between 1987 and 2017, the department recently confirmed.
The Waye recording offers a rare public glimpse into an execution, a government proceeding often shrouded in secrecy and only witnessed by a select few, including prison officials, victims, family members and journalists.
Even those who are allowed to witness are often prevented from seeing or hearing the entire execution process.
But the department has no plans to allow more recordings to be released to the public.
The Associated Press sought the Virginia audio tapes under the state’s open records law after NPR recently reported on the existence of four execution recordings, including the Waye tape, that had been in the possession of the Library of Virginia for a long time.
But shortly after NPR aired its story, the Department of Corrections asked for the tapes back and the library complied.
The department then rejected the AP’S request for copies of all of the execution recordings in its possession, citing exemptions to records law covering security concerns, private health records and personnel information.
Several death penalty experts said the four recordings in Virginia and another 23 Georgia execution tapes released two decades ago are believed to be the only publicly available recordings of executions in the U.S.
A 2018 report by the center found that of the 17 states that carried out a total of 246 lethal-injection executions between January 2011 and August 2018, 14 states prevented witnesses from seeing at least part of the execution, while 15 states prevented witnesses from hearing what was happening inside the execution chamber.
Virginia, long one of the country’s busiest death penalty states, ended capital punishment in 2021, and lawmakers have since defeated legislative efforts to bring it back for certain crimes.
But researchers and transparency advocates said the department’s decision to withhold the tapes raised concerns and would limit the ability to scrutinize or research previous executions.