PHOENIX — Arizona corrections officials now will allow execution witnesses to watch as executioners insert catheters into condemned prisoners, but a federal public defender said Wednesday that it's still unclear whether lawyers also will be allowed to see the IV process.
The Federal Public Defender's Office in Phoenix filed a petition Wednesday morning with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, challenging a district court's ruling preventing lawyers from witnessing the insertion of IV lines to carry out executions by lethal injection.
On Wednesday afternoon, Arizona Corrections Director Charles Ryan announced that execution witnesses will now be allowed to watch the catheter insertion by closed-circuit television starting with a June 27 scheduled execution.
Ryan has previously refused to allow anyone to view the process.
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"It allows witnesses to the execution to view it, not necessarily the lawyers in the pending lethal injection challenge," federal public defender Dale Baich said in an email.
Calls to the Arizona Department of Corrections seeking clarification on the updated witness policy weren't immediately returned Wednesday evening.
The Federal Public Defender's Office has complained about the practices of the Arizona DOC in carrying out executions by lethal injection.
Among the concerns cited are the qualifications of those who insert IV lines into the condemned prisoners. The lawyers also claim prison staff repeatedly fail to find suitable veins in the prisoner's arms and must resort to a surgically installed catheter in the groin area.
On May 30, a federal judge in Phoenix denied motions to allow attorneys and reporters to watch as executioners insert the catheters that carry the drugs used in lethal injections for condemned prisoners.
A federal judge on Tuesday denied a petition from The Associated Press and 16 other news groups that want a court to strike down Idaho's policy restricting full access to executions. The news organizations filed a lawsuit last month over the portion of Idaho's policy that prevents witnesses from viewing lethal injections from start to finish.
An attorney for the news organizations plans to appeal to the 9th Circuit, which ruled in 2002 that every aspect of an execution should be open to witnesses — from the moment the condemned enters the death chamber to his or her final heartbeat.
The ruling established what was expected of the nine Western states within the court's jurisdiction. A decade later, four of the states have kept part of each execution away from public view, according to death penalty experts and an Associated Press review.
Idaho, Arizona, Washington and Montana have conducted 14 lethal injections since the ruling, and half of each procedure has been behind closed doors.
