Georgia shields execution from public view during lethal injection

put to death by lethal injection in Georgia’s first execution in more than four years.

Pye was pronounced dead at 11:03 p.m. March 20 at the state prison in Jackson after being convicted for a 1993 kidnapping, rape and murder of his former girlfriend.

But despite the case’s significance and national attention over Pye, the public’s view of the execution was restricted under state protocol blocking media witnesses for state executions from critical parts of the process.

Two days before Pye’s execution, the American Civil Liberties Union filed an emergency appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court challenging media witness restrictions ahead of Pye’s execution. Restrictions include no media witnesses for the preliminary steps in state executions, including preparation of lethal drugs and checking equipment.

While the condemned is restrained and strapped to the gurney, only one media witness is allowed. There are also no media witnesses for the drug administration, which is done through IV tubing behind a wall while the condemned sits in view of the media. In addition, the state arbitrarily cuts off audio access from inside the execution chamber.

“No one sees if there are complications there. No one sees how many vials of drugs are being administered, whether the correct amount of drugs are being administered,” said Cory Isaacson, lead counsel on the ACLU lawsuit. “All of that happens, literally, behind a concrete wall, and no member of the media or then, of course, the public is able to know what’s actually happening when the state is administering these lethal drugs.”

The Georgia Supreme Court denied the ACLU’s emergency appeal in advance of Pye’s execution, but the lawsuit, which names Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Tyrone Oliver, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison Warden Shawn Emmons and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr as defendants, is not over.

“The lawsuit continues, and we will continue to fight for the right of the public to know what is happening during state executions,” Isaacson said.

Carr’s office declined to comment on the case but referred to the Fulton County Superior Court’s denial of the ACLU’s request.

“The state filed a response to our motion in which they essentially argued that they could not loosen any of these restrictions at this point because it would lead to a delay in the execution of Mr. Pye,” Isaacson said. “Nothing we asked for was burdensome in terms of time or effort.”