U.S. District Court Judge Malcolm Howard has ordered North Carolina prison offi­cials to pro­vide med­ical­ly trained per­son­nel to ensure that death row inmate Willie Brown, Jr. is uncon­scious dur­ing his exe­cu­tion, cur­rent­ly sched­uled for April 21. Prison offi­cials have until noon on April 12 to present their plan for com­ply­ing with the order. ​“Serious ques­tions have been raised by the evi­dence con­cern­ing the effect of the cur­rent exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. If the alleged defi­cien­cies do, in fact, result in inad­e­quate anes­the­sia pri­or to exe­cu­tion, there is no dis­pute that Brown will suf­fer excru­ci­at­ing pain,” Howard wrote in his order. According to the North Carolina Society of Anesthesiologists, only an anes­the­si­ol­o­gist or a nurse anes­thetist under a doc­tor’s super­vi­sion could do what the judge is requiring. 

In March, the exe­cu­tion of Michael Morales in California was delayed due to a sim­i­lar court order. In that case, state offi­cials were unable to find doc­tors will­ing to make sure that Morales was uncon­scious when par­a­lyz­ing and heart-stop­ping drugs were admin­is­tered. As with the more recent law­suit filed by Brown, Morales’ attor­neys had argued that inmates are not suf­fi­cient­ly sedat­ed dur­ing the first phase of the lethal injec­tion process, and that the inmates may be unable to com­mu­ni­cate while suf­fer­ing intense pain. The American Medical Association oppos­es physi­cian par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions.

(The News and Observer, April 10, 2006). See Methods of Executions; see also DPIC infor­ma­tion on exe­cu­tions stayed because of chal­lenges to lethal injec­tion. Read Judge Howard’s Order. UPDATE: Brown was exe­cut­ed on April 21 after the state obtained a brain wave mon­i­tor that was mon­i­tored in an adja­cent room by a doc­tor dur­ing the lethal injec­tion. (News & Observer, April 21, 2006).

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