Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, "DeYoung executed with videographer documenting his death." It's by Rhonda Cook.
With a video camera recording his last moments, Andrew Grant DeYoung was executed Thursday night at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center for killing three family members.
DeYoung was declared dead at 8:04 p.m., fewer than 15 minutes after the process began. Lying prone, he barely moved throughout the execution. His parting words were: "I'm sorry for everyone I've hurt."
For the first time in Georgia, a videographer was present in the execution chamber, documenting DeYoung's death and his reaction to a new three-drug lethal injection that anti-death penalty activists said caused unnecessary pain and suffering. The videographer, accompanied by a woman taking notes, stood off to the side and was barely visible to witnesses.
DeYoung, however, only blinked his eyes and swallowed repeatedly, and showed no violent signs in death. He was checked by a nurse for consciousness shortly into the execution, a new procedure put in place. At 8:22 p.m., he was taken from the prison in a black Butts County Coronor van.
And:
Hours before Thursday's execution, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Bensonetta Tipton Lane rejected the state's attempt to have the Georgia Supreme Court review her ruling that allowed the execution videotaping.
Lane, overseeing the appeal of death-row inmate Gregory Walker, had ordered the recording of DeYoung’s execution after hearing claims the state’s lethal injection process caused unnecessary pain and suffering. The execution videotaping was the first in almost two decades nationally, since it was permitted in California. No other states with the death penalty currently allow it.
DeYoung’s was the second execution for Georgia in which a new anesthetic, pentobarbital, was part of the lethal three-drug cocktail. The switch to pentobarbital was necessary when sodium thiopental was no longer produced. Capital punishment opponents insisted the new anesthetic is unsafe, insisting the drug-induced comas were not deep enough to shield the condemned from the excruciating pain that comes when the other two drugs are injected, with paralytic pancuronium bromide followed by potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
DeYoung’s lawyers contended there were problems with the June 23 execution of Roy Blankenship, the first man in Georgia to die from a lethal injection using pentobarbital.
Witnesses reported that Blankenship jerked his head several times early in the procedure though his movement and breathing slowed within minutes. Prison officials said those movements came before the anestietic had taken place.
"Georgia's videotaped execution sets new precedent," is the title of Greg Bluestein's AP filing. It's via the Macon Telegraph.
The Georgia Attorney General's office warned the move could set a troubling precedent and lead to the "potential for sensationalism and abuse," and the state worried that it could encourage a rash of similar filings. The execution was pushed back a day to buy prosecutors more time to block the taping, but a second legal challenge was also rejected.
Fordham Law School professor Deborah Denno said she expects other attorneys in Georgia and elsewhere to start demanding that executions be recorded on video now that Georgia has done so.
"This development would help immensely in detecting the many problems with the lethal injection process, especially if the videotaping included all of the procedure from start to finish," she said.
The legal fight over the video recording unfolded amid a larger debate about Georgia's lethal injection procedure.
And:
Georgia attorneys argued the courts don't have the power to order a video crew to monitor an execution, and warned the recording could leak out into the public despite the judge's order to seal the tape. The state also warned that allowing the recording would interfere with the strict security measures in place for executions.
But defense lawyers said the security concerns were overblown. Kammer said in the filing that the corrections department has routinely let school tours within the prison and allowed a PBS show in 2006 to film the execution chamber, although it did not tape an execution.
"It is simply disingenuous to assert that video recording of Mr. DeYoung's execution constitutes a fundamental threat to the security of the institution," he said in the filing.
While death penalty attorneys applaud the judge's order, they say additional steps are needed to ensure lethal injections are proper.
"It is always better to have more transparency in what has been an exceptionally secretive execution process," said Ty Alper, an attorney who works with the death penalty clinic at the University of California-Berkeley. "But videotaping an upcoming execution is no substitute for conducting a real investigation into what actually happened."
Earlier coverage of Georgia lethal injection issues begins at the link. Related posts are in the lethal injection index.
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