The North Carolina Medical Board, which licens­es and dis­ci­plines doc­tors in the state, has unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to make it uneth­i­cal for a physi­cian to par­tic­i­pate in exe­cu­tions. Under the new pol­i­cy, doc­tors and nurs­es employed by the prison sys­tem won’t be desci­plined for ​“mere­ly being ​‘present’ dur­ing an exe­cu­tion,” but are for­bid­den from admin­is­ter­ing the lethal drugs or phys­i­cal­ly assist­ing with the exe­cu­tion.

The North Carolina Medical Board rul­ing comes as the state con­tin­ues its debate about the humane­ness of its lethal injec­tion pro­to­cols. Defense attor­neys have argued that only anes­the­si­ol­o­gists or trained med­ical pro­fes­sion­als can tell if an inmate is uncon­scious before being put to death. They argue that the state’s pro­to­col could result in an inmate wak­ing up dur­ing the pro­ce­dure but being par­a­lyzed and unable to express pain before dying. Currently, the North Carolina Department of Corrections uses a brain wave mon­i­tor and heart mon­i­tor to eval­u­ate the sta­tus of a per­son being exe­cut­ed. The machines are watched from a small view­ing room estab­lished for doc­tors or nurs­es who are employed by the prison system.

North Carolina is sched­uled to exe­cute Marcus Robinson on January 26, but Robinson’s attor­neys have asked a court and the gov­er­nor to halt the exe­cu­tion due to the on-going lethal injection challenges.

(Associated Press, January 18, 2007). See DPIC’s lethal injec­tion Web page.

UPDATE: The exe­cu­tion of Marcus Robinson and anoth­er North Carolina inmate sched­uled for exe­cu­tion, James Thomas, were stayed by a state judge on January 25 because the state had made changes to its exe­cu­tion process with­out get­ting the nec­es­sary approval. (News & Observer, Jan. 25, 2007).

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