High Court Rules
Submitted by deathwatch on Fri, 05/08/2009 - 5:24pm
[This post was authored by a friend of DeathWatch.]
HIGH COURT RULES THAT EXECUTIONS MAY ONLY BE CARRIED OUT BY UNETHICAL, UNREGULATED DOCTORS
The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled last week that the Medical Board cannot discipline doctors who take part in executions because state law requires their participation. Where does this leave us?
The Hippocratic Oath holds that doctors may do no harm. Both the American Medical Association and the North Carolina Medical Board agree that this means it is unethical for doctors to participate in executions.
The North Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling ignores this established ethical consensus. In doing so, it creates a conflict for doctors who are asked to take part in executions. Should they do what the State asks or follow their professional code of ethics? A doctor who chooses the former and carries out an execution disregards the medical profession’s centuries-old code of ethics.
The death penalty cannot be humanely administered by unethical doctors. The state of Missouri discovered this when it hired Dr. Alan Doerhoff to supervise executions even though he had been banned from practicing medicine in two hospitals and sued over twenty times for medical malpractice. After over 50 executions, it was finally revealed that Dr. Doerhoff was dyslexic and knew that his disorder caused him to transpose numbers. In effect, this means that Dr. Doerhoff may have tortured inmates to death by giving them the wrong dose of anesthetic.
The Supreme Court’s decision makes it more likely that this could happen in North Carolina because it strips the Medical Board of its power to discipline doctors who inflict great pain during executions.
Before the Supreme Court’s decision, other legal challenges had already brought executions to a halt. Now, the Court has made it even more unlikely that they will resume any time soon.
Human beings should not be put to death by unethical, unregulated doctors who are free to do what they want without any oversight from the Medical Board. Our state doesn’t need a black eye like this.
Does this ruling really restrict the NCMB?
Another site states deathwatch's comment of "the Medical Board cannot discipline doctors who take part in executions because state law requires their participation" a little differently: "the court ruled against the right of the Medical Board to prohibit doctors from helping prison personnel to inject poisons into prisoners"
I am not a lawyer, and have not yet been able to drag myself through the court documents (at least without falling asleep) in this case. However, I cannot imagine the court ruling specifically that the Medical Board CANNOT DISCIPLINE FOR ANY REASON a doctor who partakes in an execution. The ruling, from what I have been able to gather, halted the NCMB from prohibiting participation, not from disciplining for incompetence.
The NCMB should still be able to discipline doctors who botch the stated procedures in the way the Missouri doctor did. There is a huge difference between what is being claimed in this article and what (I believe) was ruled. (Please correct me if I am wrong.)
Please note - I am making no judgment as to the morality, efficiency, effectiveness, etc. of the death penalty, nor any reference to whether a racial bias exists in NC concerning the death penalty, or a wealth bias, etc. I am just giving my opinion that what was stated in this particular blog entry was an overstatement of the court's ruling.
I read the original post as a cross between
anguish, sarcasm, satire and utter disappointment. But maybe that's just me.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
Actually, what the ruling means
is that the Medical Board can't discipline a doctor for taking part in an execution, since State law (15-190) requires that a physician be present at all executions. In other words, the General Assembly created both the Medical Board and the death penalty Statute, so the Medical Board would be exercising greater power than its "creator" (the NCGA) if it defied the Statute.
But the NCMB did not violate the Statute. It did not prohibit doctors from being present or certifying death, which is all the (1909) Statute actually calls for. So a doctor could meet both the Statute and the Board's limitations by just being present and signing off on the death certificate.
But here's where it starts to get (even more) complicated. Because of another previous lawsuit dealing with the uncertainty about pain suffered during lethal injection, Corrections came up with a new protocol, that was approved by the Council of State a few years ago. This required that a doctor monitor vital signs during the execution to see if the condemned was experiencing pain. This new protocol is what prompted the NCMB to make its above warning to doctors.
Now, the General Assembly has yet to include that enhanced role for physicians in the General Statutes, so when Corrections couldn't find a single doctor willing to defy the NCMB, they sued in District Court, and won. And now they've won in the NC Supreme Court.
Here's the part that I really don't like: because the NCMB had adhered to the old Statute as written, and because the GA had yet to change the Statute, both courts had to "interpret" what the 1909 General Assembly "envisioned" as the doctor's role in the execution. And even though another Statute (15-192) specifically required a doctor sign the death certificate, both courts ignored that Statute, and stated, "The General Assembly did not include such a requirement simply to have a “professional” present at the time of the execution without that individual supplying some sort of professional assistance..."
The Supreme Court ignored the glaringly obvious: a doctor had to be present because a doctor is required to certify death. Period. Why they ignored that is the question.
deathwatch here
I will defer to the post's author on this one. May be Monday before I can get a response, though.
In the meantime, some good news from death row is here.
Thanks, DW
Thanks for that update.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
“Friend of DeathWatch” here to clarify.
I appreciate the responses to my post. All are good observations.
It is true that one possible reading of the Court’s opinion is that doctors who take part in executions will continue to be subject to discipline for incompetence, recklessness, or worse, just not for participation alone.
However, that interpretation leaves it up to the Department of Correction to inform the Medical Board of the need to investigate possible medical misconduct during an execution. Placing this trust in the DOC ignores its history of being less than forthcoming about what goes on in the death chamber.
In 2006, a North Carolina federal judge permitted executions to proceed after lawyers for the state made assurances that a doctor would be present to monitor the inmates. Two executions later, the prison doctor revealed that nobody asked him to do any monitoring and that he would not have participated in an execution even if he had been asked. That situation is chronicled by the N&O here and here.
If the DOC is willing to lie about whether a doctor is participating in an execution, even after its lawyers have told a federal judge that one would, then it cannot be trusted to inform the Medical Board of possible medical misconduct.
Furthermore, the execution protocol itself compounds this problem by preventing witnesses from standing in as reporters of potential misconduct. During a lethal injection, inmates are given three drugs: an anesthetic, a chemical paralytic, and a heart-stopping agent called potassium chloride. If an execution goes wrong and an inmate is not given enough anesthetic, he may be fully conscious during his execution. However, the chemical paralytic will prevent him from moving, speaking, or making facial expressions, thus masking any signs that he is suffering. As a result, witnesses will not be able to tell if the inmate is being tortured to death.
Because the DOC has shown that it cannot be trusted to do what it says it will with respect to doctor participation in executions, I believe that the practical result of the Supreme Court’s decision will be to remove all responsible medical oversight from the execution process. The motivation for my original post was thus not anguish, sarcasm, satire, or disappointment, but rather grave concern.