Several journalists sued the Arkansas prisons chief, demanding he let witnesses see the entire execution process and not just when poison flows into condemned inmates.
Arkansas does not allow media and public witnesses to watch as intravenous tubes are inserted and removed from the inmates. The curtains to the execution chamber open to witnesses after the condemned prisoner is already strapped to the gurney, and close once the inmate is dead.
"Witnesses should be allowed to see the entire process, including strapping the condemned down and the insertion of needles," reads the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in federal court. "The public has a First Amendment right to view executions from the moment the condemned is escorted into the execution chamber."
The procedures vary among US states that have capital punishment. But several, including Virginia and South Carolina, keep the curtains closed while the tubes are inserted.
The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas on behalf of the Northwest Arkansas Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Arkansas Times Inc and the editor of the Arkansas Times. It was filed against Larry Norris, director of the Arkansas Department of Corrections.
Department spokeswoman Dina Tyler disputed the First Amendment claim.
"The foundation of this lawsuit has a large fault running through it and that is, it assumes that executions in Arkansas are public events, when state law declares them to be exactly the opposite, to be private," she said.
In August 2002, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled the public has a constitutional right to view executions from the beginning, including procedures involved with putting an inmate to death. Its decision is not binding on states outside the 9th Circuit, which covers the western states, Alaska and Hawaii.
In early 2003, the California Department of Corrections stopped its legal battle and decided to allow the media to witness the executions in full.
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