US Supreme Court Refuses to Stay Videotaped Execution, Now Set for Tonight
A camera will record the execution of a Georgia inmate tonight due to a request by a death-row lawyer hoping it will provide evidence that a sedative used in animal euthanasia doesn’t work on humans.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to stay the execution of Andrew DeYoung, convicted in the stabbing deaths of his parents and sister, report ABC News, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Associated Press. DeYoung was scheduled to die Wednesday but Georgia correctional officials delayed the execution a day to figure out the logistics of the recording.
Lawyer Brian Kammer, who represents death-row inmate Gregory Walker, sought the videotaping as evidence in a challenge to lethal injection. Kammer believes the last videotaped execution occurred in 1992, when lawyers sought evidence in a challenge to lethal gas, AP says.
Some states are using the animal euthanasia drug pentobarbital in the three-drug cocktail because of a shortage of the drug sodium thiopental. A Georgia inmate executed with the pentobarbital replacement in June grimaced, jerked, rocked side-to-side and gasped, witnesses said.
