Company Town : Televised Execution

North Carolina death-row inmate David Lawson and talk show host Phil Donahue were waiting Monday to see whether the U.S. Supreme Court would allow the killer’s execution to be shown on television.

Lawson, 38, is scheduled to be put to death by cyanide gas at 2 a.m. EDT Wednesday; Donahue wants to videotape the event and televise it.

Lawson has said he was suffering from depression when he broke into what he thought was empty house in 1980. As he was leaving, he set off an alarm and the homeowner rushed inside. Lawson fatally shot the owner.

The warden at Central Prison in Raleigh rejected the request to videotape Lawson’s execution.

Lawson says he wants Donahue to televise the execution in order to bring attention to the effects of depression and in the hope it will deter crime.

Donahue’s attorney argues that to bar TV broadcasts while allowing written coverage discriminates against the television industry.

“We think the First Amendment says that if you invite a reporter to a governmental function that you cannot curtail how that reporter reports,” said John Hasty, a Charlotte-based attorney who also represents Lawson.

“Mr. Donahue ought to have the right to effectively report on the event, which means for a television journalist, the right to use his camera,” Hasty said.

Lawson will be the 17th person executed in the United States this year, according to the Death Penalty information Center in Washington. Most of the executions were concentrated in Southern states, with Texas already averaging one a month.

Lawson was born in Michigan into a family that included an alcoholic and abusive father. His parents separated when he was two.

As a teen-ager he was sent to reform school for his part in a burglary ring, where he served as the lookout. At about age 18, he came to North Carolina looking for his father. When he found him, the father was still drinking and continued to be abusive.