Death Penalty Course @ Moritz College of Law

Lots of lethal injection doings

As detailed at my main blog, there's been lots of lethal injection developments since our last class meeting.  Here are links to some of my coverage at SL&P:

• Florida LI commission report
• Florida gov seeks national LI review

• Ohio lethal injection litigation going forward
• Now what for Ohio's death penalty?

I plan to recap some of these developments at the start of our Wednesday class, but then we will turn to the discussion of federal death penalty issues (materials on their way).

Does the Florida LI commission's recs require greater doctor involvement?

Providing a fitting capstone to our discussions of execution methods and the role of doctors, today the Florida's Commission on Administration of Lethal Injection finalized its recommendations today on improving the state's lethal injection process.   I cannot yet find the Commission's report on line yet, but this article details that the report, which comes from a group created by out-going Governor Jeb Bush back in December after a botched execution, has more than a dozen recommendations. 

By my lights, it would seem that some of the recommendations almost require the involvement of doctors in the execution process.  Consider these recommendations (as reported by the press):

• Medically examine the inmate one week before the execution and determine the best method to achieve IV access.
• Don't move the inmate after IV access is achieved and take other steps to make sure IV access is maintained throughout the entire execution.
• Improve training, including holding periodic training exercises for all execution team members in which they practice possible contingencies.

Would the AMA's policy against physician involvement in executions allow doctors to play any role in these activities?