The ACLU is filing a lawsuit today in federal court in Ohio to force prisons to make public the entire exeuction process. First off, they're not talking about live television coverage of executions, although that will likely be the subject of future suits brought by the media.

At issue today is the process of inserting the IV needles into the condemned person's arm. The ACLU says the prisons are doing this in private--when the inmate is brought into the execution chamber to be killed in the presence of media and witnesses, the needles have already been inserted. The ACLU says the public doesn't get to see how painful the needle insertion procedure is to the inmate:

"What they've done is taken the process of judicially taking a man's life and reduced it to a minor surgical procedure," he said.

Getting killed is painful, even when it's by lethal injection. First there's the needle insertion process. Then there's the sharp burning of some of the chemicals. It's not just peacefully dozing off into a sleep from which you don't awake. The ACLU wants people to know this. Courts in California and Oregon, for example, have already agreed with them.

We have mixed feelings on this. We think if the inmate objects on privacy grounds to having his pain and discomfort made public, his wishes should be accorded respect. On the other hand, executions are open to the media so that the public can be accurately informed about the killing. Bottom line for us: the need for accuracy in reporting on executions favors the ACLU's position.