At a hearing in federal District Court in Maryland, Dr. Mark Heath, an anesthesiologist and assistant professor at Columbia University, testified that those designated to carry out lethal injections in the state were unprepared and unqualified for the task. “The totality of all their knowledge is grossly inadequate,” Heath stated.

Sworn testimony from members of the execution team was shown at the hearing. In one videotaped segment, the doctor who was responsible for declaring that executed inmates were dead expressed surprise that the state had also designated her as the person who would slice into an inmate’s limb to insert a catheter in a deeper vein if the team’s nursing assistant could not start a standard IV.

Asked whether she would “feel comfortable” performing such a task - called a “cut-down procedure” - the doctor responded, “I do not do cut-down procedures. Period.”

In another clip, the retired state trooper responsible for injecting lethal doses of three drugs into IV lines said he had never before seen the Maryland Execution Operations Manual.

The hearings are being conducted in the case of Vernon Evans. He was scheduled to be executed during the week of Feb. 6, but received a stay from the Maryland Court of Appeals. The stay enabled him to pursue a challenge to Maryland’s lethal injection process in federal court.
(Baltimore Sun, Sept. 20, 2006). See DPIC’s Lethal Injection page. Hearings begin Sept. 26 in California on that state’s lethal injection procedures.