ACLU teams with Hustler publisher Larry Flynt to halt execution of his shooter in Missouri

Joseph Franklin confessed to shooting Larry Flynt in 1978, which bound the Hustler publisher to a wheelchair for life. Franklin also tried to kill civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. But it was for other murders he committed that Franklin is scheduled to die by lethal injection in Missouri on November 20.

Flynt is among those who don’t want to see Franklin die at the hands of the state, particularly given the secrecy shrouding the way the state plans on carrying out Franklin’s killing. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion on Saturday on Flynt’s behalf to unseal records associated with the state’s plan to execute Franklin.

Missouri’s problems with finding a way to execute condemned prisoners amounts to a lengthy and troublesome history. 

In 2006, the state halted lethal injections when the doctor of the Missouri’s execution team at the time, Alan Doerhoff, admitted under oath that he was dyslexic and “improvised” the administration of fatal drugs in prisoners, to say nothing of his 20 prior malpractice lawsuits.

More recently, Missouri had to put off the planned execution of Allen Nicklasson on October 23 when it was discovered that the state planned to use propofol in its lethal-injection cocktail, which elicited complaints from the German manufacturer of the drug that is opposed to its use in executions.

Flynt says he’s troubled by several aspects of Franklin’s planned execution, including the involvement of an anesthesiologist, identified only as M3 in court records, who claims to be board-certified and licensed to practice in Missouri, despite the American Board of Anesthesiology’s prohibition against its members taking part in an execution.

“The state claims that its executions satisfy Eighth Amendment standards because their execution team includes a board-certified anesthesiologist,” says Tony Rothert, the ACLU’s legal director in Missouri, in a written statement. “However, the American Board of Anesthesiology forbids its members from participating in capital punishment. If M3 is certified, it is only because the state is abetting him in hiding his identify from the board. The public should be skeptical of his testimony, but because his testimony is sealed, we do not even know what he said.” 

Flynt says he would rather see Franklin spend the rest of his life in prison, but he also objects to the hypocrisy and secrecy involved in Missouri’s execution protocol.

“I find it totally absurd that a government that forbids killing is allowed to use that same crime as punishment,” says Flynt in a written statement. “But, until the death penalty is abolished, the public has a right to know the details about how the state plans to execute people on its behalf.”