True, but we’re edging into semantics territory. Those links contain words like “should not,” “opposes” and so on. Just because those organizations disapprove of those actions, that does not mean that they are expressly forbidden.
As I said in my previous post, some of the info was what I’ve picked up in the last 7+ years. The rest I got from my brother, a captain at Kentucky State Reformatory. Any information he provided (and, having been a CO for 12-13 years he knows quite a bit) that is incorrect, blame me for asking the wrong questions, or paraphrasing him incorrectly. What I got right about the prison aspect, credit to him.
But, at the same time, there has to be a doctor present in order to officially pronounce the convict as deceased. And a nurse generally starts the IV, even if they are not the one who pushes the medication.
And the AMA may not approve, but they can take no steps to reprimand a provider who participates.
Medical means of painless execution would require medical professionals and pharm companies to risk becoming pariahs within their profession and industry.
Death penalty opponents and the squeamish public will not tolerate the painless yet violent means of execution available.
Death penalty advocates are indifferent to the offender’s suffering, so they are not much interested in non-violent, non-medical, and painless means of execution.
So we’re kind of stuck with the result of a bunch of stubborn people refusing to come together on a difficult decision.
Well good. So I assume you ultra liberals have no concern about guns, based on your commitment to risk assessment. I’m not a first grader at Sandy Hook, nor am I a black congregant in SC, ergo, I’m golden.
The importance of a painless execution is not, I suspect, concern for the suffering of the inmate; it’s concern over the suffering of the executioners. Taking a life, even if you feel it’s justified and appropriate, is traumatizing - just ask almost any soldier who’s ever had to kill an enemy. Seeing another person in agony because of your actions is probably worse.
Messy methods of execution would carry a risk of spreading blood-borne disease. You’d have to decontaminate the area after a messy execution if the condemned had hepatitis B or C or HIV.
Counterpoint to your link above. From my linked article:
From your link:
Bolding mine. Also, in your link, the line " The investigating committee found such evidence and reported its findings to CEJA. After receiving the committee’s report, CEJA initiated disciplinary proceedings, observing strict procedural due process,22 including confidentiality of the proceedings and findings, and developed new evidence under its own procedural rules. At the conclusion of the process, CEJA revoked one physician’s membership in the AMA for participation in execution by lethal injection" reads - to me - that the CEJA investigated (or had someone else investigate) the doctor you referred to in your link. They completed their investigation, developed new rules, then revoked his membership in the AMA for rules he broke that weren’t rules when it happened.
Furthermore, about the only thing that the AMA can do is revoke their membership in the AMA. They do not have the ability to revoke a doctor’s license; just his membership.
Again, emphasis mine.
I’m having trouble finding any statistics that compare doctor vs nurse in starting IVs, one way or the other. I’ll withdraw that, but over the course of my career, I can count the number of doctors I’ve seen start an IV on a patient on one hand. When I said that nurses started more IVs, I was referring to in normal clinical settings, not specifically in prisons. So any confusion on that point may have been that we were using different qualifiers.
I do have a question about your line “So long as we both agree that most lethal injections are not performed by doctors, nurses or EMTs, yeah, we’re both right.”
Who do you think is actually administering the medications? Unless the protocol is different in Kentucky, I can assure you that it’s someone with medical training. It’s not the warden, or any of the guards. An article in the 7/25/2014 copy of USAToday says, “States do not reveal the identity of the executioner. It could be a physician, nurse, EMT or someone else with training.”
[/quote]
With all due respect, I have more confidence in the SDMB’s resident prison doctor, Qadgop the Mercotan, who works at a maximum security prison in a system with over 20,000 inmates:
[QUOTE=Qadgop the Mercotan]
I’m not executing anybody. Nor are any of my colleagues in Corrections Medicine. To do so would also violate the standards put out by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care.
[QUOTE=Qadgop the Mercotan]
In the US, it’s unethical for a doctor to participate in an execution, and for one to do so would cost him his license to practice medicine.
[/QUOTE]
**Qadgop **said it, I believe it, and that settles it.
My main point was that they were not forbidden from doing so. They faced serious consequences, yes. And if they choose to participate, they understand the risks. But the AMA itself cannot bar a physician from an execution.
In Missouri I was touring the old prison, and the guide (an ex assistant warden IRC) mentioned that they were told to hold their breath as soon as the gas dropped, and then inhale as deeply as possible when the executioner rapped on the window after the gas had reached a certain concentration.
Disagree. Hanging was used for centuries. Anti-DP people complained. The electric chair and gas chambers were devised to be more humane. Anti-DP people complained and challenged these methods in court, and asked why these states didn’t use lethal injection.
Lethal injection was universally adopted. Anti-DP people tried (and succeeded) in drying up the drug supply. A new lethal injection protocol was adopted. Anti-DP people complain.
It’s not our side tinkering with the methods. We would still use hanging and electric chairs if we could. Your side causes the methods to keep changing.
