Bonnyman rules for the Scene in open-records case

Bonnyman rules for the Scene in open-records case
By Walker Duncan

04-25-2007 12:50 PM —
Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman this morning ruled in favor the Nashville Scene in its attempt to shed light on the current effort to revise the state's methods of carrying out the death penalty.

As NashvillePost.com recently reported, the Scene filed a lawsuit against the Tennessee Department of Corrections after the dapartment and its commission, George Little, denied an open-records request from the alternative weekly newspaper seeking to lift the hood, so to speak, on the execution review process.

The review follows an executive order from Gov. Bredesen in February staying all executions until new protocols could be devised. The department has until May 2 to establish these new methods.

Soon after the order was handed down, the Scene filed its request under Tennessee's open-records law for information on how the new procedures would be developed.

Though the department offered a copy of the current execution manual and some other documents, other information was held back on the grounds that it was privileged material relating to policy deliberations. Scene editor Liz Garrigan countered: "We're talking about how we're going to go about killing people in this state. We think that ought to be an open discussion."

With today's ruling, it looks as though the DOC will have to cough up the rest of the information.

The department still has the option to appeal. Assistant Attorney General Janet Kleinfelter, representing the Department of Corrections, could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.