The front curtain blocking the view of witnesses is not open, and a microphone is not turned on to allow witnesses to hear until the warden or his designee is ready to read the execution order and the inmate is asked if he or she wishes to make a last statement.

Following the last statement, or if there is none, the microphone is turned off before the chemicals start flowing.

William Morva, executed in July 2017, is the only inmate executed under Virginia’s new procedure. He could not be seen by witnesses as he was led into the execution chamber and strapped onto the gurney and witnesses were unable to roughly tell when the placing of the IV lines began and ended, as had been possible before.

Morva murdered two law enforcement officers in Montgomery County in 2006.

For electrocutions, the new policy would also block the viewing of the inmate as he or she is led into the execution chamber until they are strapped into the electric chair and other actions — redacted from the copy of the policy that has been made public — are taken.

Monitoring whether those unknown procedures are followed and evaluating the effects of those procedures on the inmate are no longer possible, adds the suit.