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Oklahoma asks court to dismiss lawsuit filed after botched execution of Black Man

From [HERE] Oklahoma on Wednesday requested that the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma [official website] dismiss a lawsuit filed after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), The Guardian and The Oklahoma Observer [websites] filed the lawsuit in August [JURIST report] in reaction to the state's decision to draw a curtain midway through the execution, blocking witnesses from seeing what was happening in the death chamber. The complaint argues that bearing witness to executions is a right granted by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the state's decision to block access to the execution violated that right. Oklahoma assistant attorney general M Daniel Weitman filed a motion for dismissal [text, PDF] of the lawsuit on the grounds that "[t]he general lack of utility of the salacious details of an execution shows that press presence does not play a particularly positive role worthy of a First Amendment right of special access." Prison officials closed the curtains to the execution room 27 minutes into Lockett's execution. Lockett's execution took approximately 43 minutes and witness accounts state the prisoner showed signs of intense pain. [MORE]