Judge: Public has right to view entirety of executions

A federal judge in Phoenix on Wednesday said the state of Arizona must allow witnesses to view the entirety of an execution, including each time drugs are administered, in a legal win for a coalition of news organizations that filed suit over secrecy surrounding lethal injections.

The lawsuit is one of two challenging the way executions are carried out in Arizona following the nearly two-hour death of Joseph Rudolph Wood in 2014. Wood was administered 15 dosages of a two-drug combination before he finally died.

The Associated Press is one of the organizations involved. U.S. District Judge Murray Snow denied the news organizations summary judgment and the case will continue. His ruling comes on the same week that the state agreed to never use the sedative midazolam in its executions in the other lawsuit involving Wood.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.