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stella41b -> RE: The death penalty (5/7/2009 2:23:00 PM)
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It would appear that the recent dispute between the AMA, state Medical Boards in states such as North Carolina and the courts and justice system may decide on whether states will be able to effectively carry out death sentences or not.
This current dispute which takes in North Carolina (where a de facto moratorium has been in place since 2007) Tennessee and Kentucky is over the role of doctors in executions. A couple of years ago the AMA came out against doctors participating in any way in executions and threatened to revoke the licenses of doctors who did take part in executions.
This has been a growing dispute since Thomas Harrison Provenzano challenged the constitutionality of electrocution back in 1999, when the Florida Supreme Court upheld the execution protocol in Florida and decided that electrocution did not violate the Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment) however the US Supreme Court went against this after the botched execution of Allen Lee Davis in July 1999. This caused the remaining states to implement lethal injection as the default method of execution.
Almost all states have implemented an execution protocol which involves the condemned prisoner being injected via two IV lines lethal doses of sodium thiopental which is an anaesthetic, then pancuronium bromide (or Pavulon) which causes overall paralysis and stops the breathing and then potassium chloride which stops the heart. A doctor is required to be present to monitor the prisoner's 'vital signs'.
However doctors are licensed under oath to 'prevent suffering' and to 'preserve life' and the Medical Boards and AMA appear unanimous that a doctor being present at an execution or taking any part of the execution is playing an active part in the execution.
However recently a divided North Carolina Supreme Court started to break down the legal logjam over the state's death penalty when it ruled 4-3 that doctors cannot be punished for taking part in executions.
A Wake County judge ruled two years ago that the Medical Board's policy overstepped its authority and that state law takes precedence, and the board appealed that ruling.
In a 4-3 decision that broke along gender lines, the court upheld the judge's ruling.
"We hold that (state law), by its plain language, envisions physician participation in executions in some professional capacity," Justice Edward Thomas Brady wrote for the majority. "(The Medical Board's) position statement exceeds its authority ... because the statement directly contravenes the specific requirement of physician presence."
The case turned on how the judges defined a physician's presence at an execution, as spelled out in state law, and Justice Robin Hudson wrote in the dissenting opinion that the court's majority defined it too broadly.
"The position statement is a valid exercise of (the Medical Board's) statutory authority. Any change in that authority – which is the practical effect of the majority opinion – is a matter for the General Assembly which granted it, not for the courts," Hudson wrote.
Medical Board officials said they disagreed with the decision and were disappointed by it.
“The Medical Board believes that the role of the physician is to end suffering and to preserve life. This board has taken the position that active physician participation in executions runs counter to the core values of medicine. That position has not changed," board President Dr. George Saunders said.
Raleigh physician Dr. Charles Van Der Horst said he has no plans to take part in an execution, regardless of the court's ruling.
"The Supreme Court, the Department of Correction, the attorney general, the governor, the state legislature, by abdicating their responsibility, are forcing physicians to commit murder," Van Der Horst said. "If the legal establishment wants to execute people, let them do it themselves and leave us out of it."
sources: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5063064/ and http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
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