The Supreme Court ruling comes down late wednesday morning. The Justice Cabinet wisely calls a news conference at 2 p.m. to handle all of the questions from all the reporters who are calling for comment. It was attornies for the Justice Cabinet who provided the state's defense against the lawsuit filed by two condemned murderers, challenging the constitutionality of lethal injections. Cabinet Secretary Gen. Norman Arflack read a brief statement then cabinet counsel Jeff Middendorf stepped in to answer questions for five TV stations, two radio networks and a number of print reporters. Less than 10 minutes later, spokeperson Stacey Floden shouted "one more question". A question was asked and that was it....Arflack and Middendorf abruptly left the room with reporters shouting their unanswered questions. THESE WERE THE WINNERS! The Supreme Court upheld their argument that lethal injection is legal.
These are the folks getting the easy questions. And Middendorf did a great job answering the easy questions until racing out of the room. That left reporters making follow up phone calls to state government P.R. people, including Floden, trying to find answers to simple questions that could have easily been handled in the news conference. It was just real odd.

That kind of amateurish behavior is usually reserved for congressmen whose young aides step in, say "one more question" in an attempt to prove they're somebody, then whisk Mr. or Mrs. Congressperson away. I've learned to keep my camera rolling
in those situations just so I can reserve the right to say "after answering three questions, congressman A cut off further questions and walked away, failing to say whether he supports or opposes Issue B".

In some cases, cutting a news conference short is a legitimate move. Occasionally, a governor's news conference will devolved into inane questions about irrelevant stuff. But 99% of the time, reporters are just trying to get answers to basic questions and a news conference will have a natural ending when there aren't any more questions. That didn't happen today with Justice Cabinet officials and it hurt their ability to sell their story, hurt their relations with Frankfort reporters and hurt their reputation as an agency that's forthcoming with information, a reputation that's been good until today.