00:01And she is now up and about.
00:03She needs a little assistance to walk, but that's pretty remarkable.
00:07I think that she's gotten her ability to swallow back, so she's now eating.
00:14She also has apparently cleared up the pneumonia that they said she was suffering from earlier this week.
00:21One of the things that we are going to be watching for, however, is how are her arms?
00:25And that's important because that's where the intravenous lines were established to send the pentobarbital that was supposed to kill
00:34her.
00:34As we now know, that didn't go right.
00:38And it's clear that some of that medication went away from the veins, maybe because there was a blowout of
00:44a vein.
00:44And it just wandered around in the tissue of her arms.
00:48Could have done very, very serious damage because that's an extremely caustic drug.
00:52It's an alkaline and it can burn.
00:54I've covered two other executions here in Tennessee.
00:57By the way, this is it for me, not doing this anymore.
01:00But one of them that I witnessed was what we call a three-drug method where the first drug puts
01:07the inmate to sleep and then the other drug shut down his system.
01:10That went without a hitch, without a flaw.
01:13That was in 2018.
01:14Since then, Tennessee has changed its method to this single-drug pentobarbital.
01:19My point is my expectation was I'd go into the witness chamber and within 15 or 20 minutes, speaking bluntly,
01:28she would be fading away, drifting away, sleeping forever, if you will.
01:33And anything but that happened.
01:35And let's say that the drug started at roughly 7.30 p.m. our time.
01:41And by 15 minutes, she's only snoring.
01:45And she had just been speaking and singing and sometimes moving her foot.
01:49So, we knew after that first what turned out to be the initial injection, round one, if you will, that
01:57they were going to have to do it again.
01:59Their protocol calls for allowing a second and that's it.
02:03And that's what they then proceeded to do.
02:05They lowered the blinds.
02:06They did it again.
02:07They raised the blinds.
02:09And we watched her essentially snore, sleep, wheeze for the next, I don't know, almost hour.
02:16The sentiment among many people is you had your shot at this state of Tennessee.
02:22You failed and she should be allowed to spend the rest of her life in prison.
02:28But we don't know that yet from the government.
02:31We live in a very conservative state here in Tennessee.
02:34It's called a red state, meaning that's just kind of the color that's identified with the conservative party here.
02:40So, what will the Republican leadership, which controls this state, do?
02:45We have a governor who is going out of office in approximately two months.
02:49He could make the decision to commute her sentence and that's what her legal team is asking him to do.
02:56If he does not do that, it will fall to the next governor and that would come in January or
03:02afterward.
03:02This being a pretty conservative state, my guess would be you're not going to see Tennessee completely abandon the death
03:10penalty.
03:11We have – it's totally up to the state to decide whether it wants it or not.
03:16We have 50 U.S. states, as you know.
03:18There are some that are adamant they would never allow it.
03:22Hawaii is just one example.
03:24There are others.
03:26Tennessee will be looking really hard at what it wants to do.
03:29We've had some politicians already say, okay, we know lethal injection is flawed, doesn't work.
03:34Let's just go back to the electric chair.
03:37Do I see a great surge to get rid of the death penalty in Tennessee?
03:43Not yet.
03:44I try to compartmentalize what I see as a journalist and keep that in that box.
03:50And me, the human being, that's over here.
03:53So, I'm trying to do my best to do that.
03:55But you started out by saying how extraordinary this was, and I don't know what other word to use.
04:02You're right.
04:02I like to do that.
04:02Do this.
04:05You're right.
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