Appen Media Group, publisher of the Sandy Springs Crier, is suing the State of Georgia and the City of Sandy Springs in two separate transparency lawsuits.

The Alpharetta-based company filed a federal First Amendment lawsuit on Wednesday, Sept. 2, challenging Georgia's restrictions on media access to executions. It also continues to litigate a separate Open Records Act case against Sandy Springs over police narrative reports the city has withheld since 2023.

Execution access lawsuit

The federal suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, names Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Tyrone Oliver, prison Warden Jason Beasley and Attorney General Christopher M. Carr as defendants. The ACLU Foundation of Georgia and Atlanta attorney Gerald Weber represent Appen Media, the company reported Thursday.

Appen Media also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order. The motion asks the court to block the state's scheduled Sept. 16 lethal injection of Stacey Ian Humphreys unless officials expand what journalists can see and hear. No hearing date had been set as of Thursday, Sept. 3.

Under Georgia's current rules, only five media representatives may observe any part of an execution. The complaint alleges the state gives media no visual or auditory access to several preparatory steps, including drug delivery, equipment checks and syringe preparation. A single "media monitor" can watch, without audio, as the condemned prisoner is secured to a gurney and connected to an IV line. The complaint calls that step "often the most fraught segment of an execution by lethal injection."

"The public shouldn't have to take the government's word for what happens behind prison walls during an execution," Hans Appen, the company's publisher and CEO, said in a statement.

Cory Isaacson, legal director of the ACLU of Georgia, said the state holds absolute power to hide key parts of executions from the press and the public. No responses from the named defendants were available in public records as of publication.

Sandy Springs police records case

Appen Media has been suing the City of Sandy Springs since May 2023 over access to full police narrative reports. The company alleged the city was emailing incident reports with only one- to two-sentence officer comments instead of the detailed narratives that ran several sentences, SandySprings.com reported.

In a May 2023 statement, the city said the supplemental reports related only to notes specific to open investigations and that releasing them could compromise public safety and ongoing investigations.

A Fulton County judge initially sided with the city. But in March 2025, a three-judge panel of the Georgia Court of Appeals reversed that ruling. Judges Brian Rickman, Amanda Mercier and Christopher McFadden found the Open Records Act requires disclosure of the detailed narratives covering law enforcement's initial response to an incident.

The case returned to Fulton County Superior Court. In January 2026, a judge ordered Sandy Springs to produce documents it had previously withheld, Appen Media reported. The city's current legal position could not be confirmed from available public records.

Appen Media is the plaintiff in both cases. The execution of Humphreys, convicted of malice murder in 2007, is scheduled for Sept. 16. The federal court has not yet scheduled a hearing on the company's request to expand media access before that date.