Sides get time to resolve Ariz. execution dispute
Web Producer: Taylor Avey
PHOENIX (AP) - A federal judge is giving state officials and lawyers for death-row inmates more time to try to settle a lawsuit challenging Arizona's execution procedures.
District Judge Neil Wake's order Tuesday grants the sides until Oct. 26 to settle the case, have it dismissed or proceed toward trial.
The sides had faced a Friday deadline but they asked for more time to discuss recent revisions to the Department of Correction's written procedures to reflect changes already implemented.
Those changes include allowing execution witnesses to see injection lines being inserted into the inmate and using only one execution drug.
The case centers on inmates' claims that their constitutional rights to protection against cruel and unusual punishment could be put at risk by how the state conducts executions.
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