Born in 460 B.C. into a world that considered illness a sign of the gods' displeasure, Hippocrates broke with tradition and founded a medical school on the island of Cos. But he's better known for penning the Hippocratic Oath, a set of guiding principles for physicians throughout the world.
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Except maybe Missouri.
"To carry out lethal injection, the [Missouri] Department of Corrections contracts with a medical doctor and a licensed practical nurse to mix the drugs and start the IV," reads an affidavit signed by corrections director Larry Crawford.
"An IV catheter is inserted into the femoral vein," Crawford states in a second affidavit, dated August 8 of this year. "Medical personnel monitor an electrocardiograph (EKG). When heart activity ceases, the physician pronounces death. The curtain is drawn, and the physician directly examines the body to verify that the prisoner is dead."
The revelations come to light in a civil suit filed by Michael Anthony Taylor and Richard Clay, two death-row inmates who are challenging the constitutionality of the state's lethal-injection method. A state court sentenced Taylor to death in 1991 for the rape and murder of fifteen-year-old Ann Harrison. Clay was sentenced to die in 1995 for the murder of Randy Martindale. The state's high court has yet to set an execution date for either inmate.
The medical community has long decried physician involvement in lethal injections as unethical. The Hippocratic Oath, which physicians recite on the first day of medical school, reads in part: "To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death."
In 1992 the American Medical Association (AMA), the nation's largest physicians' group, went so far as to prohibit its members from participating in lethal injections, devoting an entire section of its "Code of Medical Ethics" to the subject of capital punishment. The code bans members from "monitoring vital signs on site or remotely (including monitoring electrocardiograms)" and from "starting intravenous lines as a port for a lethal injection device; prescribing, preparing, administering, or supervising injection drugs or their doses...and consulting with or supervising lethal injection personnel."
Two years later a coalition of medical groups including the American College of Physicians released a report titled "Breach of Trust: Physician Participation in Executions in the United States," in which the authors argue that doctors should not participate in lethal injections because the practice is not a medical procedure.
"As a member of the profession, a physician cannot participate in a legally authorized execution," says Priscilla Ray, chairman of the AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. Adds Ray: "Unethical actions would be preparing a compound for execution or monitoring vital signs and pronouncing death."
Although the Missouri State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts, the agency that licenses doctors to practice in the state, takes disciplinary actions against physicians who run afoul of state regulations, it does not explicitly ban participation in lethal injections.
"I don't know if that's ever been brought before the board," says executive director Tina Steinman.
So far state officials have sidestepped attorneys' requests to identify the participating physician or physicians, arguing that the issue has no bearing on the plaintiffs' constitutional challenge. Similarly, attorneys for the state have declined to disclose whether the doctor is a member of the AMA.
That irks the attorneys who represent Michael Anthony Taylor and Richard Clay. "The state cannot regulate someone it doesn't know about. As long as the name of the physician is a secret, that physician could do all manner of sadistic wrong while carrying out this homicide," says Taylor's attorney, John Simon. "I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that a patient would be very concerned if the hands that were touching them were the hands of a deliberate killer."
The current lawsuit builds on an earlier action brought by convicted murderer Timothy Johnston, which took issue with the chemicals used to execute Missouri inmates. Like most of the other 37 states that perform lethal injections, Missouri uses a three-chemical sequence: an initial dose of thiopental sodium (a short-acting anesthetic commonly known as sodium pentothal); pancuronium bromide (a powerful muscle relaxant, commercially known as Pavulon, which causes paralysis); and potassium chloride (a salt that causes cardiac arrest). Johnston's lawyers argued that a subanesthetic dose of sodium pentothal might result in the Pavulon rendering the inmate fully conscious but unable to move or communicate as he "consciously [suffered] an excruciatingly painful and protracted death." In a report published in 2001, the American Veterinary Association (AVMA) condemned the chemical combination of sodium pentothal and Pavulon for animal euthanasia. Missouri veterinary regulations prohibit the method. (For more on the Johnston case, see "Uncomfortably Numb," in the December 15, 2004, issue of the Riverfront Times.)
Johnston was executed on August 31.
The current case argues along lines similar to Johnston's. But Johnston's lawyers weren't privy to the state's protocols for lethal injection until after the Missouri Supreme Court had set the inmate's execution date. Now many of those details have been revealed.
According to court documents, Missouri carries out lethal injections via:
a 5-gram dose of sodium pentothal, followed by
a 60-milligram dose of pancuronium bromide, followed by
