This is an opinion column.

Why in the name of God would anyone need a public record?

After all, doesn’t the Almighty already know what those documents show?

Those aren’t rhetorical questions. For Tabitha Isner, they were real, asked of her by a lawyer for the Alabama prison system. And she had to answer under oath.

Swear to God.

Or, if you care about transparency and accountability in government, just swear.

Like the Holy Bible, maybe we should start in the beginning.

When Isner asked for Alabama’s death row execution protocols, she had to give a reason on the Department of Corrections’ public information request form.

Isner has strong opinions about the death penalty (like a lot of people do). She’s an ordained minister, although she doesn’t lead a church (her husband does, though). Later she would run for Congress against Rep. Martha Roby (Isner lost).

When she filled out the form she said what a lot of politicians and preachers say when confronted with a prickly question: She wanted to pray on it.

Next to “Proposed Use of Records” she wrote: “As a member of the clergy, I feel a spiritual obligation to pray over executions. To do this most effectively, I need to have a detailed understanding of how executions are carried out.”

Her complete answer would have been more complex, she says now, but the blank on the form was about six inches long.

“When you fill out one of these forms, you don’t expect to be under investigation,” she told me.

But that’s what happened.

Her two-year fight to get those records has taken her to court. As part of that, she had to sit for a two-hour deposition, under oath, where a lawyer for the state asked her, among many other things, why God would need the information she sought.

Really. That happened.

Alabama’s Open Records Act says all citizens are entitled to inspect public records and take copies upon request. It used to be simple as that.

However, in 1991 the Alabama Supreme Court rejected the simple meaning of the law for a more capricious interpretation. Custodians of public records, the court said, may ask requestors why they want records “so long as the question is not intended to dissuade people from seeking the records and is not used in the ordinary course as a means to prevent people from having access to such record.”

But the Department of Corrections used that as license to interrogate and intimidate.

When the DOC deposed her, Isner had to answer deeply personal questions about her faith, her social media habits, her adopted children, her political beliefs, her charitable donations, her work history and just about everything you might imagine apart from the only question that mattered — whether the DOC documents are public records.

“It was very uncomfortable, and I think that was the point,” she said.

It was during that deposition the state’s lawyer questioned why God would need a public records request since He already knows everything there is to know.

Q: But certainly the God described in those scriptures is an omniscient God?

Isner: God is often described in scripture as omniscient.

Q: Which means knows all things, if I got my Latin right?

Isner: Yes.

Q: And so if God hears our prayers, all prayers, and God knows all things, God would -- God would know the details of these protocols that you want to find out about under that theory. You agree with that?

Isner: Yes, I think God knows how people are killed.

When Isner revealed she had donated to Planned Parenthood, the DOC’s lawyer asked whether she thought sex selection or Down syndrome were legitimate reasons to have an abortion.

Q: And so are you saying you would not support their — their abortion work? It would be the non-abortion work or — do you think an abortion is consistent with sacredness of life?

Isner: You’ve got some time today, huh?

Q: Yeah, I’m very curious. Yes.

He asked about Isner’s adopted child, and he questioned whether she prayed for the victims of violent crimes as she did for the prisoners on death row. For a stretch, the two debated public prayer and whether Isner could pray through her Twitter account.

It’s a testament to Isner’s Christian faith that she didn’t turn that lawyer’s cheek with the hard side of her hand.

The Department of Corrections is desperate to keep its death penalty process secret, and it’s no wonder why. It has struggled to kill people legally, and maybe even illegally. In 2015, the federal government seized drugs the state bought illegally off the black market. The shoddy, shady sources for the deadly cocktails have become a weak spot death penalty opponents have leveraged.

Media organizations, including Alabama Media Group, have sued for the same information, too. So far the courts have ruled favorably for openness, but all these cases are still on appeal.

Isner says she’s personally against the death penalty but she doesn’t hold out hope for changing many minds in Alabama. Yet she wonders why the state is so determined to keep its execution process secret. It seems the state is afraid that if people knew the details they might feel differently about capital punishment, she says.

“Even if you support the death penalty, surely you don’t support someone having to defend their religious beliefs under oath to make a request like this,” she said.

The thing that put a chill on her was the deposition, she says. Would she do it all again? She says she doesn’t know.

“What it taught me was the Open Records Act is not functioning,” she said. “You cannot get this information. And the state actors will intimidate and use all sorts of inappropriate tactics to discourage requests and transparency.”

Amen to that.

Why in heaven would God ever need public records?

Open records reveal our politicians’ secret sins and expose when our public officials bear false witness. They are the best tools — often the only tools — the public has to hold our government accountable. They are the light our crooks try to hide under a bushel, and without them, all we’re left with is prayer.

So if it helps, pray — first, to the higher courts to let our records go.

And if that doesn’t work, then help us, God.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.

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