News media, witnesses to view entire execution

April 28, 2006 on 11:37 am | In National legal news | |

News media, witnesses to view entire execution

By The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 26, 2006

RENO, Nev. — In response to a lawsuit filed by a newspaper, the Nevada Department of Corrections has agreed to change its procedure for tomorrow night’s scheduled execution of Daryl Mack.

The department decided to allow authorized witnesses, including the news media, to view the entire process.

The change was announced on April 21, two days after the Reno Gazette-Journal filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Reno challenging the limited viewing allowed by the department.

In the past, prison officials would allow witnesses to watch the inmate be led into the execution chamber, but guards would close chamber curtains as intravenous lines were inserted into the inmate’s arm.

Then, guards would exit the chamber and the blinds would be reopened.

In its lawsuit, the Gazette-Journal cited the 2002 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, California First Amendment Coalition v. Woodford, that found the public has a First Amendment right to view the entire execution process.

The newspaper sought a temporary restraining order asking the Department of Corrections to open the Mack execution.

It also sought a permanent injunction requiring the open process to be a permanent part of the department’s execution protocol.

The newspaper wants executions open to public scrutiny from the time inmates are escorted into the execution chamber until the time they are declared dead.

In the California case officials had objected to full viewing in order to protect the safety of the execution team. They were concerned that guards would be retaliated against if they were identified.

But the appeals court called those concerns “an overreaction,” and ruled public access was important to the process.

Unless he files an available appeal, Mack is to be executed tomorrow at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City for a murder he claims he didn’t commit.

The execution would be the first of a black convict in Nevada since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty 30 years ago.

Mack, 47, was sentenced to death for the 1988 sexual assault and strangling of Betty Jane May, 55, in a southwest Reno boarding house.