Larry Flynt's fight to save his shooter from execution
Hustler publisher opposes death penalty
Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt is fighting to stave off the execution of the man who admitted to shooting him 35 years ago, leaving him paralyzed and in a wheelchair for life.
Flynt, an opponent of the death penalty, has filed a suit to force the state of Missouri to release documents about how serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin will be executed by lethal injection and who will perform the task.
"I think the government needs to be more transparent if they're going to continue killing these people," Flynt told CBC's Day 6 host Brent Bambury.
Missouri had planned to become the first state to execute an inmate using the anesthetic propofol, until a huge outcry from the medical community caused it to reconsider.
Days later, Missouri switched to a new untested lethal drug cocktail. But the state won't specify what drugs will be used. Flynt's motion claims that too few details about that switch have been released to the public.
Franklin is set for execution Nov. 20 in Missouri for a 1977 murder. But he's claimed responsibility for nearly two dozen other killings and many other crimes. He admitted shooting Flynt in 1978, enraged by a Hustler photo of an interracial couple. But Franklin was never charged.
"My position on the death penalty has never changed over the decades. Even before the incident ever happened, I was opposed to it," Flynt said, adding that the government "should not be in the business of killing people."
"I think life in prison would be a great deal more punishment. We should be about justice, not about vengeance."
With files from The Associated Press