Procedures followed during Nevada executions

Monday, June 8, 1998 | 11:23 a.m.

The procedures to be followed, listed in an arcane "Execution Manual," provide for a final meal, coffee, cigarettes or a cigar if requested in a "last night" cell just outside the chamber.

The inmate also can send out last letters to reporters and his family, and possibly make some final phone calls. He also can get visits from the chaplain, warden or prison director.

The condemned man also gets a new set of prison denims. He also can give any personal items to other inmates.

To guard against suicide attempts, a "death watch" guard keeps an eye on the convict at all times. He can't have any electrical items, like a radio or television, in his cell although they can be placed in the corridor outside the cell.

About one hour before the execution, the inmate is "pre-medicated" with a sedative to prevent any last-minute resistance.

About half an hour before the actual execution, the inmate is brought into the small room where he's strapped to a gurney with eight car seatbelts. If he can't or won't walk, he's carried on a stretcher.

Looking up, he can see the old exhaust pipe that was used to fill the room with cyanide gas, until the Legislature discontinued that method in 1983. He also can see a heart monitor and the nine witnesses required by law, plus a dozen or so other witnesses, through a 3-panel window on his right. Behind him, a 1-way mirror hides the executioner's face.

Unless the red phone outside the death chamber brings last-minute legal relief, tubes running out of the wall will pump three injections into the prisoner's veins.

The first is an overdose of a "downer" that puts him to sleep. The second stops his breathing, and the third stops his heart. A doctor then pronounces him dead. The process takes less than 10 minutes.

Once the convict is pronounced dead, shades on the death chamber windows are pulled down, the needles are removed from his arm, and the body is taken to a Carson City mortuary.