Journalists not invited to latest Texas execution

 Opponents of the death penalty were shocked Thursday by the absence of journalists during the execution, the previous day in Texas, of an African-American, contrary to practices established for decades.

Quintin Jones, sentenced to death for the murder of his great-aunt, received the lethal injection at the Huntsville Penitentiary without journalists being invited into the building.

The prison authorities apologized for this serious error, which they said was due to a “communication problem” between the officials.

“The call for witnesses on behalf of the media was never done,” his spokesman, Jeremy Desel, told AFP, assuring that an investigation had been launched to determine the reasons for the incident.

“This is very disturbing,” Sister Helen Prejean, whose fight against the death penalty was popularized in the movie “Death Penalty,” complained on Twitter.

“All executions should be stopped immediately in Texas (and ideally permanently) pending an independent investigation,” she added.

Texas, the US state with the highest number of executions since 1982, had never excluded the media, according to the database of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).

In other places, journalists are also selected to supervise all executions.