HOUSTON – While officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice are blaming miscommunication for preventing reporters from witnessing the state’s first execution in nearly a year, legal and death penalty experts worry it's another example of what they see as a lack of transparency and competency in how the death penalty is carried out in the U.S.
Two reporters, including one with The Associated Press, had been set to witness Wednesday’s execution of Quintin Jones at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
But they were not escorted into a viewing room adjacent to the death chamber because a call was never made to summon them. Jones, condemned for the September 1999 killing of his great-aunt, Berthena Bryant, was executed with no