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| Andrew DeYoung |
JACKSON, Ga. — A Georgia man convicted of killing his parents and sister has been executed after the courts allowed what was likely the nation's first video-recorded execution in almost two decades.
Andrew DeYoung was put to death by lethal injection Thursday night at the state prison in Jackson after courts turned down his appeals. The 37-year-old was pronounced dead at 8:04 p.m.
The execution was set for Wednesday but was pushed back a day as the state tried to block the video recording. It was requested by another death row inmate seeking evidence of problems with Georgia's reconfigured lethal injection procedure.
A video camera and a camera operator were in place for the lethal injection.
No other death penalty states allow filming of executions, and tonight’s recording will be the first in almost two decades.
Judge Lane has ordered that the tape be immediately handed over to court after the execution. It will then be reviewed by a defense expert who will also oversee DeYoung’s autopsy.
Source: AP, July 21, 2011
Georgia killer Andrew DeYoung's execution filmed
A judge in the US state of Georgia has allowed the execution of a convicted murderer to be filmed at the request of another death row inmate.
Andrew DeYoung, convicted of murdering his parents and sister, was executed by lethal injection on Thursday night.
Lawyers for the second condemned man said filming DeYoung's execution would show a chemical used in the lethal cocktail causes unnecessary suffering.
They say the drug does not adequately sedate the inmate and can cause pain.
The chemical in question, pentobarbital, is commonly used to put down animals.
No final prayer
Several US states have switched to using pentobarbital because of a nationwide shortage of the more traditionally used lethal drug, sodium thiopental.
DeYoung, 37, was convicted of stabbing his parents and 14-year-old sister to death in 1993 over an inheritance.
His last meal request was for pizza, grape juice, vanilla ice cream and all-fruit strawberry preserves.
When asked to make a final statement, DeYoung said he was "sorry to everyone I hurt". He declined the offer of a final prayer.
When the three-drug injection began, DeYoung blinked and swallowed for about two minutes, then his eyes closed and he became still, according to the Associated Press news agency.
He was pronounced dead at 20:04 EST on Thursday (00:04 GMT on Friday).
On Monday, a Fulton County Georgia judge ruled that death row inmate Gregory Walker's lawyers may have a videotape of DeYoung's execution.
Prosecutors had objected to the proposed recording.
Walker has filed a lawsuit challenging his own death sentence on the grounds that the state's lethal injection drugs illegally cause pain and suffering.
He was sentenced to death in 2005 for the murder of a 23-year-old hotel maid who had stolen drugs and cash from him as he slept in a hotel room.
The BBC's Peter Bowes in Los Angeles says the only other instance of a similar recording of an execution was in California in 1992 as part of a challenge against the use of the gas chamber.
California later abolished that method of execution.
Source:
BBC News, July 22, 2011
US murderer executed on camera
Lawyers for death row inmate Gregory Walker argued that recording DeYoung's execution would provide critical evidence in his appeal about the effects of pentobarbital, which is the sedative now being used as the first step in Georgia's injection procedure.
Walker's lawyers want to show that pentobarbital does not adequately sedate the inmate and could cause pain and suffering.
In court filings, state prosecutors argued that having a videographer in the execution chamber would jeopardise security. They also said creating a video came with the risk of it being distributed.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Bensonetta Tipton Lane allowed the recording to take place, and that decision was allowed to stand by the Georgia Supreme Court. The video will be kept under seal by the court.
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal said it was up to the courts to decide the matter, though he told reporters following a news conference Thursday he had "grave reservations" about videotaping executions.
Defence lawyers countered that the state corrections department has long allowed cameras to film parts of the prison, although they acknowledged the state has never before allowed an execution to be recorded.
"It is simply disingenuous to assert that video recording of Mr. DeYoung's execution constitutes a fundamental threat to the security of the institution," attorneys wrote in the filing.
The use of pentobarbital became an issue in Georgia after Roy Blankenship's June 23 execution.
Blankenship was the first Georgia prisoner put to death using the sedative pentobarbital as the lead-off drug in the state's lethal three-drug combination.
An Associated Press reporter witnessed Blankenship jerking his head several times during the procedure, looking at the injection sites in his arms and muttering after the pentobarbital was injected into his veins.
Death penalty critics said Blankenship's unusual movements were proof that Georgia shouldn't have used pentobarbital to sedate him before injecting pancuronium bromide to paralyze him and then potassium chloride to stop his heart.
In seeking a stay, DeYoung's attorneys argued that using pentobarbital could cause DeYoung to suffer. But those arguments were rejected by the courts.
Source:
The Telegraph, July 22, 2011
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