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American Morning

Attorney General Ashcroft to Consider Closed-Circuit Broadcast of McVeigh Execution

Aired April 10, 2001 - 11:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And as we reported earlier, Attorney General John Ashcroft is nearing a critical decision on whether to allow closed-circuit television at the Timothy McVeigh execution. Two hundred and fifty people who were injured or lost family members in Oklahoma City in that bombing have asked to see the execution.

Let's go to CNN's Jeanne Meserve now. She's with Kelli Arena in Washington with more on the story -- Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: Daryn, John Ashcroft, as you say, in Oklahoma City listening to family members and their wishes as regarding the excuse. Kelli Arena is with me here now.

Kelli, has there ever been a closed-circuit television feed of an execution?

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, no, there hasn't been of an execution, but there has been in two instances of trials. In the first place, the Oklahoma City families were able to watch Timothy McVeigh's trial on closed-circuit television. That was handled by an encrypted satellite feed.

The victims of people who died in Pan Am 103, the Lockerbie crash, also were able to watch closed-circuit television the trial go on Europe. That was a different situation. They actually put that on tape, fed an encrypted feed over to the states and then destroyed the tapes immediately after.

MESERVE: So, there are security concerns that have surrounded the trial. I have to believe that the security concerns are even greater surrounding the execution?

ARENA: Absolutely. It's one thing if you are intercept a feed of a trial. It's quite another if you intercept the feed of an actual execution will, and so, there are different concerns that are at play here regarding the execution. But the officials that we have spoken to and people that are observing this do think that this can be done technologically. It's whether or not the Justice Department wants to take the chance.

MESERVE: This is the first federal execution since 1963. This is precedent-setting, isn't it, this decision? ARENA: It is. Anything that the Bureau of Prisons and the Justice Departments decided regarding the McVeigh will serve as precedent for executions from here on out. You have 21 federal prisoners on death row right now. At least one of those is expected to be executed within the year.

So, they have to tread very carefully in making the rules and making decisions that affect executions because they will be -- they'll have ramifications down the road.

MESERVE: So, spell out for me, exactly what is being weighed here. The wishes of the family?

ARENA: Right.

MESERVE: Security concerns?

ARENA: Exactly.

MESERVE: What else?

ARENA: Security concerns, technological considerations, precedent-setting measures, whether or not this is something that they want to have revisit every time they have an execution. It's unlikely that you're going to run into a McVeigh-type of situation where you have so many victims and so many families that would want to view an execution, but you don't know. In this age of increased terrorism, increased militia activity and so, you just don't know what you're going to encounter. So, they do have to tread carefully. This will have, like I said, have ramifications for several years down the road.

MESERVE: And a decision is expected tomorrow?

ARENA: Tomorrow. We heard tomorrow. You could hear from Ashcroft today, but the -- officially, we're supposed to hear tomorrow at noon.

MESERVE: OK, Kelli Arena, thanks so much.

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