Friday, May 9, 2008
A judge rules that a company better known for softcore porn cannot bring Timothy McVeigh's death to the masses.
Apr 19, 2001 | On May 16th, Timothy McVeigh will be taken into a room with a one-way mirror at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. Strapped down onto a gurney, arms outstretched, McVeigh will watch as prison technicians insert a catheter into each of his arms. After a brief injection of saline solution, they will begin to give him a series of lethal injections. The first -- a muscle relaxant, sodium thiopental -- will protect McVeigh from the pain of death; the second two -- pancuronium bromide, which will stop his breathing, and potassium chloride, which will induce cardiac arrest -- will kill him.
David Marshlack, CEO of Entertainment Network, Inc. thinks that you should be able to watch the execution pay-per-view, right from your computer. In a special one-time-only theatre-of-death spectacular, Marshlack wants to sell you the Oklahoma City bomber's last minutes for the low, low price of $1.95 (all of which will be donated to charities benefiting the bombing's victims). And we thought the Net couldn't get any sleazier than Rotten.com.
Whether the scheme is a shameless publicity stunt or a well-intentioned charitable fundraiser, the court's not having it: On Wednesday, Indiana U.S. District Court Judge John Tinder nixed this latest stab at charging for Web content. The case of Entertainment Network, Inc. vs. Lappin et al. is so ethically thorny that it inspired Judge Tinder to wax philosophical in his opinion: "The relief sought in this case is the logical extension of Marshall McLuhan's prophetic proposal from the 1960s that the 'medium is the message.'"
And if there were ever a time to resurrect McLuhan, this is it: What's in question here isn't the execution itself, or the public's right to hear about it; it's about the means by which the story is to be told; what some say is our constitutional right to watch the execution, rather than just read about it.
The judge denied Entertainment Network the right to broadcast the McVeigh execution, citing "penological interests" -- in other words prison security. Judge Tinder upheld arguments put forth by Warden Harley Lappin and the Bureau of Prisons that if Entertainment Network is allowed to webcast the lethal injection, "the inmates may well see the execution as 'sport' which dehumanizes them ... When inmates feel that they are dehumanized or devalued as persons, agitation amongst the inmates is frequently fomented, which in turn can lead to prison disturbances ... ."
But the threat of prison riots hasn't convinced Marshlack to drop his case. "I know that we will be appealing by tomorrow. I don't know whether we'll appeal to the Supreme Court directly, or to the Seventh Circuit Appeals."
If Entertainment Network Inc. vs. Lappin et al makes it to the Supreme Court, it will be a red-letter day for soft-porn purveyors everywhere. Marshlack's Tampa, Fla., company is best known for broadcasting scantily-clad bikini girls and beefcake boys on sites like VoyeurDorm and DudeDorm.
But Marshlack says he isn't just looking to broaden his company's offerings from sex to death. "We're not making any money on this. It's what we believe. We believe in the First Amendment."
The McVeigh execution has reignited debate about the moral implications of who should be allowed to witness an execution. By law, executions are attended by a handful of witnesses and journalists. But when Attorney General John Ashcroft announced last week that McVeigh's death by lethal injection would be broadcast on closed-circuit television to about 250 relatives of victims of the Oklahoma bombing, it begged the question: Why stop there?
Get Salon in your mailbox!