Doctors face ethics showdown in California execution case

AP on Bakersfield Californian ^ | 2/21/06 | Marilynn Marchione - ap

[NormsRevenge]

For hundreds of years, doctors have been involved in executions. But their efforts to get out of this grisly business put them on a collision course this week with a federal judge who ordered that they assist in killing a California inmate.

"There's been an attempt to medicalize executions all the way back to the French Revolution," when Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin invented the guillotine as a humane method of death, said University of Minnesota bioethicist Dr. Steven Miles.

"Doctors then got involved again in designing electrocution for the same reason in the United States," he said. "The medical profession has been trying to dig itself out of this" ever since.

The most recent example is the case of Michael Morales, convicted of raping and murdering a teenage girl in California.

On its face, what doctors were asked to do might seem humane - ensure that Morales was adequately sedated before two painful drugs to end his life were injected. In fact, the judge ordered their participation after Morales' lawyer argued that the inmate would suffer cruel and unusual punishment if not sedated properly.

However, two anesthesiologists refused to participate in the 12:01 a.m. Tuesday execution after learning they would be expected to tell prison officials whether Morales needed more sedation or possibly even give him more medication, thereby allowing the execution to proceed. Late Tuesday, prison authorities called off the execution indefinitely.

"They weren't just going to observe," which by itself would still violate medical ethics, said Dr. Priscilla Ray, a Houston psychiatrist who chairs the American Medical Association's council on ethical and judicial affairs.

The AMA and many other medical groups have long opposed doctors having any role in executions, including monitoring a prisoner's vital signs or giving technical advice.

"They should not even certify death," because if they find the patient has not died it would lead to more drugs or electrocution to kill the patient, Miles said.

"The ethical standard is pretty much universal," said Leonard Rubenstein, a lawyer who is director of Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights. "It's the same reason physicians can't be involved in coerced interrogations," or help certify prisoners as psychiatrically fit to be executed, he said.

It's a voluntary rule and no doctors have been reprimanded or defrocked for taking part in executions.

In the California case, the anesthesiologists would have joined another doctor who is on duty during all California executions. That doctor does not insert any of the intravenous lines and is not in the room during the execution itself; typically the physician watches the inmate's vital signs on electronic monitors outside the death chamber and declares the prisoner dead.

Most states have devised strategies to avoid involving doctors.

Illinois, for instance, adopted a law saying that assisting death was not practicing medicine, thus freeing the state to hire non-physicians to do the job. Many states use "execution specialists" who are trained in how to start intravenous lines to administer lethal injections.

Texas has used such volunteers, many of whom have military training, for the 359 executions it has conducted since 1982, said Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Doctors are involved "very, very little" - only to pronounce a prisoner dead and not being present when the person was put to death, she said.

"Some states proceed without medical supervision or they require physicians to participate notwithstanding the ethical prohibitions," said Rubenstein of Physicians for Human Rights. "The doctors who work for the corrections system are in a complete bind" if required to participate as a condition of employment, he said.

In California, the judge gave prison officials two options after the two anesthesiologists refused to assist: Find a doctor who would, or kill Morales with an overdose of sedatives instead of the three-drug combination that carries the possibility of pain.

Prison officials chose the second option, but the judge then required that a medical professional administer the fatal dose of barbiturates in the execution chamber.

Hours later, authorities postponed Morales' execution indefinitely, saying they could not find anyone to give the lethal injection as ordered.

[taxesareforever]

Let me get this straight, there is no shortage of doctors to perform abortions and now in Oregon doctors will be able to euthanize so what is the problem with finding a doctor willing to execute? You would think there was a waiting list.

[paul51]

I find it hard to believe these doctors didn't realize what they were going to be doing until it was time to do it.

[paul51]

I don't have any medical certificates but I'm pretty sure I can tell when someone is dead. I'll volunteer.

[goldstategop]

The SOB Judge Fogel set the fix up perfectly. What we now have is a judicially imposed ban on executions in California.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Anesthetic - Sodium thiopental, which has the trademark name Pentothal, puts the inmate into a deep sleep.

I'm fairly sure this is the general anesthetic they gave me when I had my left leg sliced open and my varicose veins ripped out. Didn't feel a thing.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Let me get this straight, there is no shortage of doctors to perform abortions and now in Oregon doctors will be able to euthanize so what is the problem with finding a doctor willing to execute? You would think there was a waiting list.

If executions were as lucrative as abortion you'd have a new medical specialty.

[SteveMcKing]

Our "HEROS", ladies and gentlemen - smiling, smirking, and sneering at the world tonight....

Priscilla Ray
6624 Fannin, Suite 2120, Houston, TX 77030
713-797-0112; FAX 713-790-9578

Steven Miles
Department of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School
E-Mail: miles001@umn.edu

Leonard Rubenstein
Human Scum for Human Rights (... yes, I made that up)
lrubenstein@phrusa.org

---

Terri Winchell

Morales choked Winchell with a belt from the back seat, but when the belt snapped, he bludgeoned her 23 times with a hammer. She struggled so hard patches of hair were torn from her scalp, according to the San Joaquin district attorney's office.

Morales dragged the unconscious girl into a nearby vineyard, raped her and stabbed her four times in the chest. Winchell's body was found two days later after Ortega confessed to police.

Source

[swheats]

Amazing how there's a dilema whether this man suffers or not. Yet his victim suffered terribly.

[A CA Guy]

It's BS, they found a couple of activist liberal doctors to raise the ethics issue.

Hope the fellow dies in prison by another inmate by the weeks end to stop the torture the courts and these doctors are causing the family of the murdered girl.

[lizma]

Interesting. If they are so worried about pain a bolus of morphine would do the trick, although Pentathol would knock them out better.

These people's "ethics" are similar to the terrorist "religion". Basically hypocrites and a bunch of hughey.

[ApplegateRanch]

The AMA and many other medical groups have long opposed doctors having any role in executions, including monitoring a prisoner's vital signs or giving technical advice.

But, partial birth abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and starvation of a patient are just fine.

It is only when a scum sucking, worthless SOB that society has judged merits a death penalty that the doctors get all huffy over political concerns "ethics".

[NormsRevenge]

If I'm not mistaken, hanging is the other approved method the 9th circus has blessed for use after tossing the gas chamber and electric chair to the curb.

However, the convict gets to pick his poison. not sure what could happen now, or anytime soon if this holds up..

The Judge has committed a most foul deed and should be made to pay for it.

[Pistolshot]

Doctors should certify the creeps are dead after the trap drops on the hangman's gallows. They should not be injecting the chemicals.

Needless to say, this means going back to a time where justice was swift and public. In this modern with internet communications a random number of people can be chosen to carry out the deed, but only one will have the correct code to complete the execution. Maybe one of the jurors who convicted him should serve as the officer of the state to execute.

[Proud Conservative2]

"Morales' lawyer argued that the inmate would suffer cruel and unusual punishment if not sedated properly. "


It was NOT cruel and unusual punishment for him to bash a girl's head in with a hammer, choke her, rape her and stab her repeatedly, all as a favor for someone?

Sick S.O.B.s, and the lawyers that represent them! Ken Starr is a P.O.S. for taking this case.

[NormsRevenge]

The Judge was intending that the single drug,Pentathol, be the main and only chemical used, it takes four times as long to do the job by itself, however.

He added in the requirement to have 2 anesthesiologists present to recover the inmate if things don't go smoothly which was the itch in the ointment as we now have witnessed.

clever ploy. not wise but clever.

[TeleStraightShooter]

I smell a rat in the CA DA's office.

They could find a anesthesiologist to do it if they wanted to, hell outsource it to India...

[SR 50]

ping

[newzjunkey]

We're upside down. Makes me want to wash my hands of it all but that's means "they" win.

[sang]

Not quite. The same court had rejected similar and earlier claims on the same merits relying on expert testimony. This time, the court looked to evidence from the executions conducted over the last year and noted that for whatever reason, the eyewitness testimony was that respiration did not cease within the time period the court required earlier. So the court gave the State two options while denying the injunction brought by the plaintiff: administer only sodium thiopental or another barbiturate or combination of barbiturates until the plaintiff overdosed or, in the alternative, use medical experts to confirm that the plaintiff is unconscious before the administration of either pancuronium bromide or potassium chloride. The State opted to go with the second option, and that is where the trouble began. The judge was very clear that this had nothing to do with banning the practice as cruel and unusual; it was an equitable remedy that would have permitted the execution to go along as planned. The real problem seems to be that in another order (issued yesterday) the judge also required that the injection be administered not only by someone licensed to do so, but also with a syringe as opposed to an IV. The State apparently objected to this, as they did not want the executioner to have contact with the prisoner. If there is anything to object to, it is the latter requirement. I have not read the order, so I am unaware of what the rationale was for that decision; it was not mentioned in the February 14th order. I am a little curious as to why the State objected to the syringe in the administration of the sedative.

[Kimmers]

Medics are some of the best in health care!!!!