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May 19, 2014

Missouri Death Row Prisoner Seeks Filming of Execution 
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A Missouri death row prisoner is seeking to have his execution captured
on videotape for potential evidence of cruel and unusual punishment.
Russell Bucklew is set to die this week for a 1996 murder. Bucklew's
attorneys want the execution filmed in case he survives and wants to
pursue legal action, or if he dies and his state wants to file a claim.
They argue his chances of suffering a painful death are heightened by a
rare medical condition that has left him with vascular tumors partially
blocking his airway. A doctor who examined Bucklew says he will be at
"at great risk of choking and suffocating." A botched execution in
Oklohama last month left the prisoner writhing in pain on the gurney
before dying 45 later of a heart attack. Steven Hawkins of Amnesty
International said videotaping would help lift the veil of secrecy
surrounding executions.

Steven Hawkins: "At this point there have been journalistic accounts of
people writhing, accounts of people saying they can't breathe and just
when it gets bad, the state closes the curtain. We want to stop that
curtain from being closed so that the public can see first hand just how
barbaric and torturous executions even under the so-called humane lethal
injection procedures."

A lawsuit filed by several media outlets last week called on Missouri to
disclose the "type, quality and source" of lethal injection drugs.

 

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