By Dustin Volz and Stephanie Stamm
National Journal
BONNE TERRE, Mo. — A man on Missouri’s death row is asking the state to allow his execution scheduled for next week to be videotaped, on grounds that his rare medical condition could cause him to suffer excessive pain during his death.
Russell Bucklew’s attorneys filed a motion Friday in a Missouri District Court requesting that a videographer be present during the execution in order to “preserve vital evidence of the events occurring during his execution.”
The petition comes in the wake of Oklahoma’s botched execution of Clayton Lockett, and runs parallel to challenges that death-penalty opponents are mounting in both states over the secrecy shrouding the production and acquisition of their lethal-injection drugs.
“If Missouri officials are confident enough to execute Russell Bucklew, they should be confident enough to videotape it,” said Cheryl A. Pilate, one of Bucklew’s attorneys, in a statement. “It is time to raise the curtain on lethal injections.”
Bucklew, 45, is scheduled to be put to death on Wednesday for the 1996 murder of Michael Sanders. His lawyers have argued that a congenital condition known as “cavernous hemangioma,” which causes vascular tumors in the head and neck, could prevent the lethal injection from working as intended.
If the request is granted, Bucklew’s execution would be the first to be videotaped in U.S. history.
Full story: Missouri Death-Row Inmate Wants His Execution to Be Videotaped