Deborah Denno comments to NBCNews about the federal motion filed by the lawyers of the next U.S. prisoner scheduled for execution, which argues that a visual record of his execution should be considered evidence in his civil rights lawsuit against the state.
Fordham Law Professor Deborah Denno, who has studied execution methods, said one argument against a video is that the images could be leaked to the general public.
The idea of recording an execution also runs counter to the secrecy that shrouds the process in many states. She noted that in Lockett’s case, his executioners closed the curtain to the death chamber as soon as things went wrong so the witnesses could not see what was happening.
Watch the entire NBCNews segment.